“I’d never had wine before. They don’t let kids my age drink it, back home. But when Pientao gave me a cup I thought I’d better drink it to be polite and to stay in character, because for all I know Serenikha drinks it all the time and it would look suspicious if I said I didn’t like it.”

The Family that Plays Together

Part 7 of 10

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with Morpheus' permission, in his Travel Agency universe. Thanks to Morpheus for his feedback on the first draft.

I'll be serializing it here over the next few weeks, but if you don't want to wait, the whole novella is available as part of The Weight of Silence and Other Stories, along with thirteen other stories, including several that haven't previously appeared online.

I circulated and talked to several other people, thanking some of them for gifts they’d sent. Then I got trapped in a long, boring discussion between Aopin, the foreign minister, and a couple of human noblemen; Wushao rescued me and pulled me away, sharing some juicy gossip about a conversation she’d overheard between Lady Terunobu and General Aitsu. She thought it meant they were having an affair, but I wondered if she was reading too much into it. While we were talking, I saw Lady Hanuseri and Lord Ravadh leave the room together.

I’d finished my tea and munchies some time ago, and had given the empty cup and plate to a waiter, or a servant I guess, a few minutes earlier. After I’d been talking with Wushao for a few minutes — mostly listening to her — Pientao came up to us, holding two cups. He offered me one, and I took it without thinking, and thanked him — then realized it was wine, not tea. I’d never had wine before, and I wasn’t sure how much I could safely drink. Naga in general must have some tolerance for wine, or they wouldn’t be serving it here — but how much could Serenikha’s body handle? If I got drunk and talked about who I really was...

I took one sip — I was pretty sure that much wouldn’t hurt, and I though I’d better make a show of drinking at least a little or I might offend Pientao. Before the banquet, Bhavalikha had told me that I didn’t have to eat everything the servants put on the table, but if a guest personally offered me something, I had to eat some of it. But that one sip was a mistake; I wasn’t expecting it to taste like that — I don’t know what I’d expected — and I made a horrible face and spluttered, spraying wine all over Pientao and Wushao’s silk clothes. I stared at them for a moment, then stammered out an incoherent apology.

“I humbly beg your pardon,” Pientao said, gently taking the cup from my hand. “The bottle this came from must have gone bad. I will tell the servants to throw it out.”

“No — I mean, maybe it’s okay — it’s just a lot stronger than I’m used to —” I felt miserable; I was sure I’d just given myself away, that the real Serenikha was used to that kind of wine and Pientao would know it. But if so, he seemed to have thought it was a white lie to avoid blaming him for giving me spoiled wine. He murmured something to Wushao, who nodded, and stayed with me while Pientao marched off to give the servants at the refreshment table a piece of his mind.

“I’m really sorry — I shouldn’t have — I mean, it wasn’t their fault or his —”

“Don’t worry,” Wushao said quietly. “Let’s go somewhere people won’t stare at us...” She raised her hand and made a gesture, and led me away toward the back doors. As we went, she said a little louder: “I am afraid you have overexerted and suffered a relapse of your illness — we are honored that you have pulled yourself from your bed to visit us and to receive us in hospitality, but really you must rest more and fully recover.” As we neared the doors, we were joined by Bhavalikha and a human servant girl who carried a large bag.

“Princess Serenikha is ill, I’m afraid,” Wushao said to Bhavalikha. “I hope it is nothing serious, but perhaps she had better leave the party for a while, at least, to refresh herself.”

“Yes, I think so,” Bhavalikha said. “And you’ll wish to refresh yourself as well — this way.”

She showed Wushao and her servant to a bathroom where the princess could wash up and change into clean clothes (which the servant had in the bag), and then led me to my quarters.

“What happened? Are you ill, as she said, or did you feign nausea to escape from Pientao...?”

“No, no, it was nothing like that — he’s cool — but, see, I’d never had wine before. They don’t let kids my age drink it, back home. But when Pientao gave me a cup I thought I’d better drink it to be polite and to stay in character, because for all I know Serenikha drinks it all the time and it would look suspicious if I said I didn’t like it. I didn’t think it would taste so weird that I’d spit it out before I knew what I was doing.”

“This is bad,” she said, “but I don’t blame you. We — and this mage, and Serenikha — have thrown you into a situation you are not prepared for, and our best attempts to prepare you must necessarily be imperfect. I don’t know what we are to do — perhaps I can persuade your uncle, I mean Serenikha’s uncle, to try postponing the betrothal until after she returns to her body. And we’ll have the Patient One try again to reverse this spell.”

“I don’t think it will do any good. I don’t think he understands the Gray One’s magic at all.”

“I beg your pardon!” she said. “Perhaps our naga mages are not so world-famous as the mages of the Dragon Kingdom, but they are powerful enough.”

“I didn’t mean it like that — I’m sure the Patient One has plenty of neat spells the Gray One doesn’t know, too. Only he looked pretty stumped after he tried to send me back this morning.”

“One doesn’t cross the ocean in an hour. He will try again tomorrow — or perhaps tonight, if you’re not too tired.”

“Sure. Could you leave me alone to rest for a while first, though? And maybe get me some tea to wash the taste of that wine out of my mouth?”

“Of course.”

After she left, I whispered to Dad’s tree — which had the gold band around the trunk again — “Don’t come out just yet — wait till she brings me the tea and goes away.”

It wasn’t Bhavalikha who came back with the tea, but Tiaopai; she fussed over me and helped me out of my party finery, and put me to bed, and finally left me alone. Dad emerged from her tree as soon as she was gone.

“Did you hear all that?” I asked as she climbed onto the bed and walked over to sit on the pillow next to the one I was leaning on.

“I heard, but I don’t understand the language you were speaking with your chaperon. I understood your conversation with the servant but it didn’t tell me much.”

“Oh...” I told her about the wine incident. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“Oh no, Leslie. You’re in a hard situation. It’s not like you’d snuck off to a party with older kids where they were drinking — you were sticking to tea, weren’t you, until this Pientao fellow tried to get you drunk?”

“I don’t think he was trying to get me drunk — he was just trying to be nice, and he didn’t know how young I was and that I’d never had wine... But yeah, I didn’t want it but I was afraid he’d figure out I wasn’t really Serenikha if I said so.”

“Well, from now on — if you have to go to any more parties as Serenikha — you’ve got a good excuse: tell people you’re still just a little sick and can’t stand wine at the moment. Anyway, I’ve got some good news and some bad news...”

“What? Tell me the bad news first — are Mom and Taylor okay?”

“They’re fine; after I met with them and Kinuko, she took them to see the big market on the other side of the river, and I came back here, but you were getting ready for the party and I didn’t have a chance to come out of my tree until now. No, the bad news is that Kinuko says it’s possible Serenikha could stay in your body longer than eight days.”

“Oh no!”

“If he gets away from Chad and Maella, and doesn’t go back to Mr. G.‘s office with them at the end of our vacation, Mr. G. won’t be able to send him back to her own body until he tracks him down and finds him. But the good news is — well, there’s a lot of good news. For one, Kinuko’s going to talk to Mr. G., and tell him your suspicion about Serenikha wanting to stay in your body, and he’ll warn Chad to keep an eye on him and not let him run off. Two, Mr. G. is a lot better at finding missing persons than the police or FBI. The very first time your mom came here, the person who swapped with one of her friends — I think you’ve met Keisha once or twice, haven’t you? — well, she got kidnapped, and missed the rendezvous for meeting up back at Mr. G.’s office. But Mr. G. found where her kidnappers were holding her, and rescued her, and sent her back just a few days late. Kinuko says he’s had to do that two or three times, when people got lost or decided they liked their new body and wanted to keep it.

“And on top of that, there’s a thirty-day time limit built in. The Gray One likes to reverse the spell himself, under controlled conditions, but it’s supposed to reverse itself after thirty days if he can’t do it by hand for some reason. So don’t worry. Even if you have to stay longer than eight days, it probably won’t be very long — not until next spring when they said the wedding would be — unless —” She hesitated, and I demanded:

“What is it?”

“If she gets killed in your body... then you’d be stuck in hers. But of course she won’t want that, and Mr. G. has all kinds of protective spells on the folks in our bodies, and Chad’s watching out for them. Or — magic doesn’t work everywhere in our world. It works better in some places than others, and there are dead spots where it doesn’t work at all. If she finds her way into one of those, and stays there, Mr. G. won’t be able to track her down by magic, and the expiration of the spell won’t affect her. Still, we’d probably be able to find her eventually by old-fashioned detective work.”

“I hope so.” We hugged, and Dad snuggled up beside me in bed until someone knocked at the door; then she vanished back into her tree, and I said: “Who is it?”

“It is I, the Patient One.”

“Just a second.” I put on a sari-camisole and told him to come in — and of course Bhavalikha was with him; she wouldn’t let him be alone with me. He ordered her to be quiet, as usual, and started working his spells on me. After almost an hour of that, the bracelet suddenly fell off my wrist, and he gave a triumphant cry and snatched it up. I felt sick with apprehension. He left with the bracelet, and Bhavalikha left a few minutes later when I told her I wanted to be alone. Then Dad came out of her tree and said: “Don’t worry. Kinuko needed it to track you here, but now that we know where you are... well, I don’t think they’re going to move you anywhere, and if so, you can insist on taking my tree with you, right?”

“Sure... Please stay with me.” I was scared, in spite of all Dad’s reassurances, and I missed Mom and Taylor and Daniel and even Jarrod. Dad hugged me again and hummed quietly, a tune I recognized but couldn’t remember the words to at the moment. I fell asleep listening to her.

When I woke up to find Talarikha bringing in a pot of tea and asking if I felt better, Dad was gone. I figured she’d probably vanished back into her tree when she heard Talarikha coming. I drank the tea and ate the breakfast Tiaopai brought, but before I could get a moment alone to talk to Dad’s tree and see if she was still there, Bhavalikha and Lord Ravadh came in.

“Good morning... I hope you’re not mad at me because of last night?”

“Bhavalikha explained. It is unfortunate, but I hope it will not be disastrous. Prince Pientao gave no evidence that he was offended; before he and his brothers left, he spoke to me and said he wished you good health. And this morning we received a note from him.” He handed me a scroll of paper, which I unrolled and read:

“Honored Princess Serenikha,

“Your relapse into illness is a source of distress to all your friends, in which number I hope you will count myself and my sister Wushao (who is reading over my shoulder, and sends her best wishes). I hope to see you and enjoy your fascinating conversation again soon, but more than that, I hope that you will rest long enough to fully recover this time. Do not let the importunities of diplomats and ministers interrupt your rest before you are entirely well. I trust we will have many long years to get to know one another, and there is no urgency.

“Your servant and well-wisher,

“Prince Pientao.”

“So... I guess he bought into the story that I was sick? That was Wushao’s idea, I didn’t have the presence of mind to think of it.”

“I doubt it. But he is clearly willing to play along with it. And despite what he says, there is as much urgency as ever, perhaps more. We must not postpone the betrothal ceremony if we can help it. I will be going to the palace today to meet with the foreign minster and the elder princes, and hopefully finalize the arrangements. You will stay here, ‘recovering from illness,’ and will not leave the embassy again until the betrothal.”

That sucked. But it was partly my own fault, and I didn’t think I should complain, or that it would do any good. “Can I at least get out and see the rest of the embassy, and not be cooped up in these rooms?”

“Perhaps so. Another thing: I met with Lady Hanuseri last night.”

“What did she say?”

“She informed me of what I already knew from your own lips — that the mage called the Gray One had exchanged your soul with Serenikha’s, and that he and his servants were being careful to keep Serenikha safe in your body and would be sure to return her soul to her body in due time. And she tried to threaten me with unspecified consequences if I failed to allow you to leave the embassy and go traveling with your family, who are also apparently here in borrowed bodies...? I refused, of course, and pointed out how you had suffered a near-fatal attack from a kappa while you were supposedly under this Gray One’s protection. She offered to let me send one or more bodyguards to accompany you and your family during your travels, but I still refused; we must keep Serenikha’s body as safe as possible, and we cannot let her be seen roaming the city or the countryside in the company of strangers. However — we finally agreed that your family could come here to visit you, when Serenikha has no public appearance scheduled. She said she would speak with them and arrange a visit, probably for later today.”

“Great!” I involuntarily glanced at Dad’s tree, wondering if she was in it and had heard that — but then she didn’t understand the naga language we were speaking. But they didn’t seem to notice the glance or suspect what it meant.

After that, Lord Ravadh left, and Bhavalikha coached me on the betrothal ceremony for an hour or so. When she finally left me alone, I checked Dad’s tree, but she didn’t seem to be in it; she must have snuck out late last night or early that morning to talk to Mom and Taylor.

I slithered around the suite, looking at everything again, picking up and toying with the dragon statuette and the other gifts, looking for anything interesting to do. There weren’t many books, and the ones I found were boring and hard to read — whatever spell the Gray One had used to make me understand the language didn’t help with the nagas' literary conventions. I tried to puzzle through the book where Bhavalikha had shown me the picture of the garuda, and find out more about the history of the naga and garuda’s rivalry, but the language was so flowery, and so overblown when it talked about how evil the garuda were, I couldn’t make much sense of it and couldn’t take it seriously when I did.

In the comics I read over at Daniel’s house (Mom and Dad didn’t like most of them, because of the ridiculous way the women’s bodies were proportioned and other gender stuff), Hawkman was a hero and most of the characters who looked like snakes were villains. I wasn’t silly enough to think that that proved anything, of course, but it probably influenced me subconsciously. I wished I had some independent source of information about the naga and garuda.

I put the book down and wandered through the other rooms. Tiaopai came in to ask if I was ready for dinner, and I said sure. Then: “Would you like to play a game?”

“Oh — really, my lady? With me?”

“You know I’m not really Serenikha — you don’t have to call me ‘my lady’ when we’re alone. My name’s Leslie, remember?”

“Very well, Leslie... ah, what about sientsu?”

“I’ve never heard of it, but I’d be glad to learn. How do you play?”

“I’ll show you... I think there’s a board around here somewhere.” She walked into my bedroom and I slithered after her; she picked up a painted wooden board that was propped on a shelf, which I’d taken for a mandala or abstract painting, but which turned out to be a game-board. It was hollow, with little reddish and grayish stones inside, and after she brought in my dinner, I insisted that she eat with me, and she soon taught me the basics of sientsu. It was more like Go than checkers, but not exactly like anything I’d played before. After two or three games, I taught her to play checkers (improvising a little since the sientsu board wasn’t exactly the right size and shape for it), and we were still playing when Talarikha came in.

“My lady, you have visitors — Lord Ravadh said I was to inquire if you were ready to receive them.”

“Oh — sure, show them in.” And a few moments later, she returned with Mom, Taylor and Kinuko, and left again, with a curious glance at Tiaopai, who had hastily stood up from the game board as Mom and the others entered, and was standing alert.

“Mom!” I cried, and hugged her, and then Taylor. I didn’t ask where Dad was — probably she’d teleported back into her tree at some point in the last few hours, but hadn’t been able to come out to talk to me because Tiaopai was there. “Um, guys, this is Tiaopai — she’s one of Serenikha’s servants, and she’s helped me out a lot. She knows about me not really being Serenikha.”

“What game is that you’re playing?” Mom asked, and I explained.

“Tiaopai taught me this cool game called sientsu, and then I started teaching her checkers — listen, she can explain the rules better than I can...” But Tiaopai seemed a little confused and embarrassed at being involved in our conversation, so I told her she could go if she liked; she left in a hurry.

As soon as she was gone, Dad popped out of her tree. “I was going to tell you they were on the way, but you had company,” he said. “I’m glad to see you treating the servants here like real people, by the way. You make your mom and me proud.”

Dad had told them most of what had happened to me, but Mom and Taylor wanted to hear about it all directly from me, and Kinuko particularly wanted to hear about the Patient One removing my bracelet, and about what Lord Ravadh had said. I told them in as much detail as I could remember, and then I asked Kinuko:

“What do you know about this war between the naga and the garuda? The naga say the garuda attacked them, and that they’ve got a more powerful army than the naga — and the only air force, I guess — and so they need help from the Dragon Empire to defend themselves. But I wonder if the garuda would tell a different story.”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t heard much about it — there are few naga here and fewer garuda, and until a few days ago, when Serenikha came to me under a false name, I’d never had any dealings with either. Why does it matter?”

“Because — if the garuda did really attack first, if the naga are fighting in self-defense and they really need the Dragon Empire’s help to defend themselves against the garuda, then I want to help them as much as I can for as long as I’m here. I’ll stay here and do my part and I won’t need the Gray One to get me out, as long as I can swap back with Serenikha from here.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But if that’s just wartime propaganda, if the naga are just as much at fault as the garuda, or the real aggressors — then get me out of here. I don’t want to help them in that case.”

“Well... I don’t know anything but what you’ve told me, as I said. But the Gray One has resources to find out. I will ask him... but I don’t know if he can find out anything definite in the few days left before you return to your world.”

“Well, tell him I don’t need to be rescued until and unless we find out the naga are the bad guys here.”

“They kidnapped you,” Mom said. “And if we excuse that as a misunderstanding, because they thought you were this princess, they’ve continued to keep you even after they found out who you really were.”

“I’m not saying they’re perfect. But if they’ve really got their backs against the wall, if they really need my help to get the Emperor’s help and the Emperor’s help to survive — I’ll let bygones be bygones.”

“I’m really proud of you, Leslie,” Dad said, with a glance at Mom. “We’ll support you and help you if you want to get out of here — but I’m proud of you wanting to give up your vacation to help these people. We’ll find out what you need to know, somehow.”

We visited for a while longer, and Mom and Taylor told me about the gardens, temples, and markets they’d gone to see while Dad and I were here, and Taylor and I played a game of sientsu — he won. Then Bhavalikha came in and said:

“I’m sorry, but you’ll need to leave soon. You can visit Leslie tomorrow at the same time if you like; the next day she may be busy.”

She showed Kinuko, Mom and Taylor out — Dad had vanished as soon as the door started opening, because it would look suspicious if I had another visitor who hadn’t come in with the others. If Bhavalikha had recognized her as a kodama she’d wonder where her tree was, and might get suspicious about the bonsai I’d gotten from Lord Tsurihano.

Before Dad had a chance to come out of her tree again, Talarikha and Tiaopai returned with tea and supper. Tiaopai showed me and Talarikha a three-player version of sientsu, and we played that until the Patient One and Bhavalikha came in. The servants left, and the mage had me lay down on the bed while he tried again to swap me and Serenikha back early. This time his paralysis spell worked, and didn’t wear off until some time after he’d finished and gone away; I guess the bracelet had been protecting me against it. I got dizzy a couple of times while he was working, but the feeling passed quickly and I was still in Serenikha’s body.

Dad finally came out of her tree a few minutes after Talarikha got me ready for bed, and snuggled up next to me as I went to sleep, humming a lullaby.

“Sorry I can’t sing to you,” she’d said. “I heard a dryad sing once, when your mother and I were pixies, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard... But I don’t know any songs in this language, and I can’t remember the words to any songs from back home. Only the tunes.”

“I can’t either,” I realized. When I tried harder, I thought I could remember the words to my favorite songs — but they seemed insipid, and they didn’t rhyme or fit the tune I remembered; I realized I was subconsciously translating them into the language they spoke here. Or else the Gray One’s magic was. I fell asleep listening to Dad’s humming and and thinking about how that magic worked, which was better than worrying.

I'll be traveling and may not be able to post chapter 8 on next Monday as usual. I'll probably post it by the end of next week.

Three of my novels and one short fiction collection are available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format.