“Well, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“You’re right. If I get morphed into a bulloko’s ass, I’ll be sure to let out a gigantic fart, so be listening for that. The smell will knock him out too, so you shouldn’t have any issues infiltrating his base.”
“I’m being serious,” she said.
“I am too,” said Puk. “You’re gonna be way up here, and we still don’t know where I’m gonna end up within the ship. I don’t think there’s any signal that would get through to you. I’m gonna be on my own.”
Saying it made his throat dry up like he’d swallowed sand. He pressed his fingertips harder against the wooden wall.
Kali had no rebuttal. She leaned her forehead against the wall, staring down at the floor. Puk could tell she was frustrated, but there was nothing to be done.
He wanted to lighten the mood, but the knot in his stomach would not allow it.
All he could think about was the plan. About being ripped to shreds by red magic. Or turning into an animal’s ass. If the mage didn’t drink the spit quickly, Puk was going to die.
So I might die today, he thought.
Voicing that worry made him want to throw up. If he had eaten any breakfast, he might have.
The two shared another minute of silence before the strangely-dressed person popped into existence in the corner of Puk’s eye. They had materialized near the railing, a foot or two away from the broken mast. He made a mental note of the spot.
“They’re here,” Puk whispered. Kali didn’t reply, but her breathing grew more staccato. She looked to him, awaiting his move. Letting him take the lead for his plan.
Puk watched the short figure walk to their usual place on the deck to view the sunrise. He then realized he didn’t know what specifically he was going to do to knock this person out. Tackle them? Bonk them on the head? And with what, his tiny little sticky fist?
“What should I do?” he asked Kali, immediately relinquishing his leadership position.
“Take them out,” she said.
“I don’t wanna fuckin’ kill ’em!”
“I did not mean kill them,” she grumbled. “Just get out there and do something!”
Shit.
The rest of Puk’s body caught up with his left eyestalk as he clumsily slipped around the corner of the wall. His shoes beat against the wooden deck and he figured there was no use trying to sneak, so he rushed the mysterious figure.
They turned to face Puk as he raced forward, but all they did was raise their hands and wave them pleadingly, urging him to slow down and stop.
Puk ignored the gesture.
He collided with the person, sending them both tumbling onto the floor. Their head smacked against the hard wood, knocking the ridiculous pointed hat off their head.
Their face was not at all what Puk had expected, because it was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
The reason their features had been so caked in shadow was because there was no actual shadow—their head was total blackness. It was rounded, smooth, and completely pitch black. Its skin was fuzzy and soft like felt. The only feature on their face was two misshapen circles acting as eyes, sewn with thin red yarn. Strangely, there were also X’s sewn across the eyes.
Puk could not comprehend what sort of creature he was looking at, nor could he figure out why the impact hadn’t knocked them unconscious. It had not been a gentle landing.
Without a mouth to protest, the peculiar thing struggled underneath Puk’s weight to push the qarm off its body.
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Puk told it, “but I might need to hit you on the head or something.”
He raised his fist to strike them, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he gazed morosely at the creature’s blank expression as it writhed beneath him.
“Signal!” he then called to Kali.
She stood up from behind the wall and said, “That’s your signal?”
“Just come here, please!”
Kali jogged over to where the two diminutive figures were struggling on the ship deck and gaped at the thing’s face.
“What…?” She couldn’t form the question.
“I dunno,” Puk said, “but it ain’t got a mouth, so it ain’t gonna yell for help. You stay here with it while I go downstairs.”
She nodded and grabbed the thing by the arms while Puk awkwardly slid off its body. He was thankful that he would not need to harm it any further—if it had gotten hurt at all in the first place.
“Is it a doll?” Kali wondered.
Puk shrugged. A doll was probably the closest approximation he could think of, especially with its yarn eyes. Kleus Saix’s red magic had to be manipulating the thing somehow. It hadn’t been knocked out because it was not actually a living being.
Underneath its green coat, the doll was wearing a rumpled tan shirt, similar to what Puk himself was wearing. With Kali’s help, he removed the coat and hurriedly slipped into it. He then waddled over to the discarded hat and picked it up, immediately realizing a fatal flaw in the plan.
“Okay, I fucked up,” he groaned loudly.
“What’s wrong?”
“The only way I can wear this is if it goes over my stalks,” he explained. With eyestalks jutting out from the top of his head, there was nowhere he could traditionally place a hat and still see.
“That is a problem,” said Kali.
“Yes. I would like to be able to see things while I am dealing with the mage and looking for a book, if at all possible.”
“Understandable. How much can you retract them?”
“Not much more than they were a minute ago,” he said. He could comfortably retract his eyestalks to around half their normal length, but any more than that was painful. Definitely not sustainable for the amount of time he would need.
“Try tearing some eyeholes into it,” Kali suggested.
As soon as Puk pinched two parts of the hat and began to tug, the previously docile doll began to flail in Kali’s arms. Puk immediately stopped, feeling too guilty about ruining the thing’s prized possession, no matter how ugly the hat was.
A half-baked idea came to him. He swooped his stalks down, creating smooth curves like hangers on a coat rack, and placed the hat on top of them. The hat’s brim pressed against the backs of his eyes, his stalks cradling it in place.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Insane.”
“Will it work?”
“Probably not.”
His eyeballs were very clearly poking out from underneath the hat. He’d been planning for the brim to shade his face and obscure it enough to fool Kleus. Fool him just long enough to spike his tea, in any case. Sporting two very-real eyeballs where there should be zero might give him away, though.
“I don’t think there’s anything else I can do,” he said with a defeated shrug.
“We can cut them off and glue the eyeballs to your face instead.”
“Do you have scissors and paste?”
“Unfortunately not. I have my dagger, but no paste.”
“Dang. And it was such a solid idea.”
The situation was far from perfect, but he would have to adapt.
He instinctively wanted to turn his stalks to face the doll, but being constrained by the hat, he had to turn his whole body. It felt awkward and uncomfortable. The thing stared at him, yarn eyes unblinking. He had also been planning to demand it tell him where to find Kleus, but without a mouth, that was not in the cards. And he couldn’t politely ask it to escort him to its home.
Great work, you fuckin’ idiot. Plan’s going great, he berated himself.
Puk took in a deep breath, felt his heart pounding in his tiny chest, and let it out slowly. He was sure he’d suffer a heart attack before the day was done.
Kali handed him her sheathed dagger and said, “Just in case.”
He took it, gripping the hilt in his sweaty palm. He thanked her.
There was nowhere to strap the weapon to himself
without it being visible to Kleus, so he opted to stuff it into one of the countless oversized pockets in the absurd coat he now wore. He took the opportunity to transfer the spit vial to a coat pocket as well, for easier access. As he did so, it clinked another object already occupying the pocket.
Puk dug past the glass vial and grasped the other item. It was cold and small.
What he pulled out was an iron key.
“Well, that’s helpful,” Kali grinned.
He agreed. The key was rough, its stem slightly bent. There was no decorum to it at all, strictly utilitarian. His immediate thought was that it was nowhere near fancy enough for a luxury ship like the Pontequest.
“This looks like an engineering key to me,” he said.
Kali nodded and said, “Yep. Too ugly for a passenger room key.”
The doll remained unfazed. It had long since given up its struggle, sitting limp in Kali’s arms. Watching the proceedings.
Puk didn’t know if it had any awareness of what was going on. Though it must, if it was cognizant enough to know Puk was going to rip its hat. Did it have any affinity for its master? Were they friends?
He shook the thought. It didn’t matter. They were here for the book, and they were going to get the book. Simple as that.
“Guess I’m going to the bottom deck,” Puk said. “See you on the other side.”
She offered a weak smile. “Good luck. I’ll be here with our new buddy.”
“Don’t wish me luck!” he groaned. “That’s gonna guarantee I get liquefied or jellified or something!”
“Good luck!” she said, with extra enthusiasm.
“Thanks.”
The disguise was set, key in hand.
Puk wandered toward the area where he’d seen the doll suddenly appear less than five minutes earlier. Anxiety nipped at him and it felt as if so much more time had passed since then, like it was crawling by.
The spot was empty, nothing more than some wooden planks and open air. Clearly there was magic obscuring an entrance, so Puk took a step forward—
—and nearly tumbled down a set of hidden stairs. There was a square hatch in the ship’s deck, hanging open and exposing a stairway that seemingly led straight down to the bottom floor of the vessel. A magical cloak hid the entrance from any onlookers, and Puk had nearly careened downward to the fate of a broken neck.
He had almost let out a creative swear, but refrained in case it carried down the stairwell into wherever Kleus lived.
It had to be uncomfortable, living amongst—well, admittedly Puk didn’t have the faintest clue what sort of machinery an airship operated on, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be cozy living amongst it.
The sun was barely peeking over the Gogol’s dunes. The day was still fresh. Maybe Kleus was still curled up against a boiler (or a steam engine or whatever was down there), sleeping peacefully, dreaming of waking to a mug of warm, delicious tea.
Puk regained his footing and descended the staircase.
Each step groaned with his footfalls, conjuring images of humongous splinters jutting out from the splitting wood and piercing through his skin. He shuddered.
There was hardly any room to move, aside from up or down. Puk was a small individual, and yet his shoulders almost grazed the walls on either side, even without help from the over-padded coat. He guessed this acted as a service corridor for workers, allowing them to move between decks without being seen by the paying customers. Because it would truly be the end of the world if they saw a lowly worker on their pleasure cruise.
A door soon appeared on his left. Jiggling the handle revealed that it was securely locked. Puk tried inserting the iron key just in case, but its teeth would not fit within the keyhole.
He resumed his downward march.
More doors appeared during his descent, one for each layer of the ship, but the key did not work for any of them. Finally, he reached the bottom of the staircase and stood before the doorway leading to the engineering deck. He inserted the key, smiling lightly at the gentle, satisfying click, and pulled it open with caution.
There was no mage inside.
What he discovered was a small, empty room with an unmarked door on each of the walls that flanked him. The walls were pockmarked with holes from the crash, and in the intervening years sand had spilled inside onto the floor. Across from him on the far wall was a door with the simple word ENTRANCE etched into it. That had to lead to the portion of this deck they previously explored, one of the many locked doors that had impeded their progress. He bet that if he stuck the newfound key in there, it would open without a hitch.
Glancing at the doors on either side of him, the decision of which to try first was made for him. One hung slightly ajar, inviting the room’s dim light provided by a few stray holes in the wall to impose on its darkness. Being so utterly dark and open to the world, Puk knew Kleus was not inside.
The other, however, was shut tight.
Just begging for a key, Puk thought, tiptoeing toward the imposing doorway.
Nothing about its outward appearance was sinister, but knowing what it held inside put Puk ill at ease. Even without breakfast, he gurgled up something in the back of this throat. The lamatka shank, threatening its resurgence. He swallowed it down, vile and burning.
Standing before the doorway, Puk was less confident than ever in his disguise.
He looked like a buffoon. There was no way Kleus would be convinced that he was the black, red-eyed doll.
Regardless, he slid the bent key into the hole and turned.
It was time to put on a performance.
The thick metal door swung open away from him, slow, like it was pushing through molasses. No one was standing directly on the other side, so his cover wasn’t blown quite yet.
However, the room was certainly a sight.
Puk had an albeit small understanding of the Pontequest’s layout, but it was enough to know that the room he entered was far larger than the ship could accommodate.
It was vast, stretching far off in every direction from the doorway. It easily had the floorspace of Shiar’s Slumber, if not more. Several walls were erected throughout the space, dividing it into numerous separate rooms.
Kleus Saix had conjured himself an entire house in the miniscule engineering room. For all Puk knew, this had once been a broom closet.
Once he grabbed Malum, he needed to scan the table of contents for these spells and rip them out, then find a jeornish friend to cast them on the cheapest, shittiest house he could buy in Trillowan.
He shook himself from his daze. There was no time to get distracted by the abstract red and gold wallpaper, the massive paintings hung on every wall, the ornate furniture—what he had to find was a teakettle.
Kleus was still nowhere to be seen, but Puk needed to stay on his toes. Falling out of character could literally be the death of him.
Doing his best imitation of the doll’s awkward gait, he closed the entryway behind him and apprehensively sauntered through the home toward one of the open doorways. He could spy a dining table and chairs through the opening and had to assume the kitchen was through there.
The gamble paid off as he entered the room and was greeted by the sight of a dented silver kettle already nestled on the stovetop, filled with water. Just waiting for heat.
Weird that he didn’t magic-away the dent, Puk thought, searching for an empty mug. He had to stand on the tips of his toes, but he managed to pull one down from a cabinet and snatched a teabag off the countertop. Kleus had already gone through a couple since the prior day’s purchase.
Puk flicked on the heat to bring the water to a boil. While waiting, he extracted the vial of spit from his coat pocket and popped the cork off.
It would not take much of the substance to debilitate Kleus. Puk knew all too well that the raw stuff packed a hell of a punch.
He carefully tapped the vial, sending a few droplets dripping into the mug; not quite enough to cover the bottom of it, but more than he remem
bered ingesting back in Restick, to ensure that the dosage would render Kleus unconscious. The liquid was thick but clear, hardly noticeable unless one was specifically looking for it. He then dropped a teabag into the mug, letting it cover and soak up some of the animal saliva while the water finished boiling.
Part of him wanted to further explore, but he knew he shouldn’t push his luck. Just isolate himself in the kitchen until Kleus made an appearance.
Mere moments after the teakettle began whistling, there came a frantic shuffling from another room. Puk’s heart dropped through his stomach and down to his ass. He drummed his fingertips on the counter nervously, but quickly stopped himself.
The doll would not be nervous.
The doll would be still.
So he was still.
He stood motionless for a few seconds, waiting for the mage to appear and say something. But Kleus was still knocking about in his bedroom, so Puk loosened up a bit and poured the hot water atop the waiting teabag. Water sloshed against the saliva, mixing with the viscous liquid, and the dried leaves began steeping.
And then he was still again. Staring dumbly at the kettle.
“What are you doing?”
Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2) Page 36
