I surveyed the toys. The pickings were slim. I thought there would’ve been more, but with the holidays approaching, the toy isle had been picked over.
Wait. I pulled a box off the shelf. Musical Fun Hammer Pounding Toy Game. A variation on Whack-A-Mole, with plastic eggs with funny faces in bright Easter colors popping up and a hammer to whack them with. Please tell me there is a demo… There it was, at the end of the aisle, where the toy was hooked up to a cord. Four buttons on the bottom. I pushed one. Horribly loud music blared from the toy. So far so good. I grabbed the green plastic hammer and pushed the demo button. The blue egg popped up. I smacked it and it lit up from the inside with a seizure-inducing strobe light and gave a police-siren wail. I whacked another egg. A primate’s screech cut my eardrums. Perfect. I grabbed the box and emerged from the aisle, almost running into Sean.
I showed the box to him. “What do you have?”
He lifted a bizarre-looking contraption that resembled a cross between a hair dryer and a megaphone with an array of lights along its plastic frame.
“What the heck is that?”
“It’s a fart gun.”
“A what?”
Sean pressed the trigger. The lights dramatically lit up and the gun made a loud farting noise. “A fart gun. From that kid movie. You said annoying.”
He pressed the trigger again. The gun farted. A woman with a child in her cart looked at us. Sean’s mouth slowly stretched into a smile.
“Okay, fine.” I sped toward the checkout.
A fart.
“Will you stop doing that?”
Another fart.
“Sean! What are you, five?”
He laughed under his breath.
The express checkout lane was empty. Miracle of miracles. I slid my box onto the belt. Sean followed.
The cashier, an older plump woman, smiled at us. “Aww. You’re such a cute couple buying toys. Are you expecting?”
What?
“Yes, we are,” Sean said and put his arm around me.
I would kill him.
“No rings?” The cashier swiped the fart gun across the scanner. “Better get on that wedding fast.”
Of all the… I swiped my card and punched my code into the terminal. That’s why I never came to Walmart.
The card went through. Sean grabbed the two toys and we headed out.
“Good luck, you two!” the cashier called after us.
As soon as we were out the doors, I turned to Sean. “Will you take this seriously? The future of an entire species is at stake.”
“Yes, we’re going to save them with a fart gun.”
“Don’t!”
Fart.
Ugh.
Fifteen minutes later I ran into the inn. Gertrude Hunt seemed no worse for wear. Maud was in the war room. I stuck my head in. “Anything?”
“They tried to send a probe in and I nuked it,” she said. “Go, Dina! Go, we’re fine.”
The inn dropped my Baha-char robe, dark brown with a tattered hem, by my feet. I pulled it on, took a sack out of the closet, and held it open. Sean stuffed the toys into it and I handed it back to him. If anyone could keep it from being stolen, Sean could. The door at the end of the long hallway opened, spilling the bright sunshine of Baha-char into the inn. We stepped through the door.
Heat washed over me. We stood on pale yellow tiles lining the alley. Buildings rose on both sides of us, built with sandstone and decorated with colorful tile, fifteen floors high, each a mess of balconies, terraces, and bridges. Trees, vines, and flowers thrived in planters, adding a welcome relief from the uniformity of sandstone. Banners streamed in the breeze, burgundy, turquoise, and gold. Above, in the purple sky, a gargantuan lavender planet, cracked down the middle, oversaw it all, pieces of it floating by the main mass like misshapen moons.
I hurried out of the alley, Sean next to me. We stepped into the street, and a current of beings swept us along. Creatures in every shape and size walked, crawled, hovered, stomped, and slithered between the buildings, searching the merchants’ stalls and shops for that particular something that couldn’t be bought anywhere else. The street breathed and spoke in a thousand voices.
We wove our way through the current and stopped before a large building, its rectangular doorway dark. Sean grimaced. It wasn’t his favorite place. Damn it, I should’ve thought about it before bringing him with me. Nuan Cee, one of the powerful Merchants of Baha-char, was the one who'd hired Sean to become Turan Adin. Sean was probably being hit with all sorts of memories he was trying to forget.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But we need his help.”
“It never comes without a price.”
“I know.”
“We could just go back, get Arland, and storm the place…”