Helga: Out of Hedgelands (Wood Cow Chronicles, #1)

by Rick Johnson

  ~ ~ ~

   

  Breister smiled as he recalled the story of Helga’s return to her family three years ago.1 The story gave him hope that the Drownlands Cutoff Weekly might once again play a role in reuniting him with his beloved daughter.

  Annie’s Story

  For a long time, the three friends rattled along silently, dozing, fidgeting, and gazing out the window. Breister, however, noticed that Annie seemed to be preoccupied—softly singing a song over and over. Her eyes were closed and her head moved gently as if in rhythm with some inner music.  Although her lips moved, only by listening intently could Breister catch the words Annie sang:

  There was an old salt a-going to sea,

  But his jolly good ship, not a sail had she,

  He took his red nightshirt, cook’s apron, ’n mate’s socks,

  And with the crew’s noserags, sailed away from the docks.

  A-sailing, a-sailing,

  Sailing over the sea,

  What a fine sailor—NAY—fine tailor, was he!

  With a smile playing across her face, Annie repeated the song, sometimes singing the verse, other times, just humming the tune. Breister watched her with puzzlement. This was another unexpected side to the hardened bandit. Beneath her scars and fierce appearance, there was someone who knew silly songs. What was Annie’s story? There was more to the Cougar than he yet knew, Breister realized.

  Drawn far into his own musings by Annie’s curious reverie, Breister did not notice he was staring at Annie, until the Cougar spoke, startling him. “What are you gaping at? Never heard a sea shanty before?” Annie teased playfully.

  Embarrassed to have been caught stupidly staring at his friend, nevertheless, Breister’s curiosity pushed him on. “I thought it was a sea shanty,” Breister replied, “but I never knew you had gone to sea.”

  “No, I’ve never been on a ship,” Annie smiled. Closing her eyes again, she seemed to return to the inner world somehow related to the sailors’ rhyme...

  A-sailing, a-sailing,

  Sailing over the sea...

  For some minutes, neither of them said anything more. Deciding not to pursue the subject further, Breister turned to watch the countryside pass by.

  Then Annie spoke: “My mother, Bram Dorothea, taught me the song,” she began. “She went to sea for one voyage, and it strongly affected her. The verse came from the happy days she spent aboard ship. All that talk about family got me thinking about her.”

  Breister’s curiosity was now greatly aroused. “Annie, you have to tell me more,” he pleaded. “I feel like we’ve become close friends—and I’ve been wondering about your family. I guess you and your mother must have been close. What happened to her?”

  Annie looked away from Breister, as if gauging how much more she wanted to say. Then, making up her mind, she woke up Toshty. “Brighten up your bulb, old fellow, you won’t want to miss this,” she said, lounging back comfortably into her corner of the compartment. Roused from his sleep, Toshty blustered about “so-called friends that spoil perfectly good naps,” but was quieted by a motion from Breister, who sensed that Annie was readying herself to tell a story.

  “Bram grew up in the Estates of the Norder Wolves,” Annie began. “It is a beautiful land. Majestic, forbidding mountains surround the Estates, but give way to a flat coastal plain where most of the inhabitants live. The farmland along the coast is rich and produces abundant crops. My mother used to tell me stories about how, when she was small, her family’s storage barrels overflowed with corn, yams, and vegetables. Although there were fourteen in the household—she had seven sisters and four brothers—they had plenty to eat at first.

  “The Estates produced bountiful crops, but Bram’s family had a precarious life. They depended on the Bunge-Hoedt—or ‘the Bunge’ as it was commonly called. Under Norder Law, some designated land—the Bunge-Hoedt—was set aside for the common laboring beasts to use. All Estate lands belonged to the Barons of the Estates, who, by ancestral right, were Norder Wolves. Norder Law required the commoners—the Bungeons—to serve their Baron and work his lands. In return, they were allowed to work the Bunge. Bungeons normally had large families so that there were hands enough to work both the Baron’s lands and their own land as well.

  “Bunge-Hoedt means, literally, ‘magic lands,’” Annie continued. “They are called ‘magic lands’ because they appear and disappear like magic! A mighty river, the Urrannay, flows down out of the mountains and meanders through the Norder Wolf Estates before emptying into the Great Sea. Every spring, snowmelt from the mountains and spring rains cause awesome flooding along the Urrannay. The floods pile up silt and leave behind a multitude of small, temporary islands in the river. These islands are the Bunge-Hoedt. The silt gives the islands very fertile soil, so they are good for farming, but the same floods that give these ‘magic lands’ can also take them away. Some islands last many, many years. The best of the Bunge lands remain stable for decades, but many come and go in a single season. As the islands come and go, Bungeons must move about, hopping from island to island, scratching out their sustenance.

  “In olden times, and even while mother was a young beast, the Bungeons, by hard work, lived simply, but well. Then, the Barons began usurping the most stable Bunge-Hoedt islands for their own use and adding them to their Estates. The common beasts were left with only the most temporary, least stable islands. As the Barons’ claims expanded, the Bungeons spent more and more time working for the Barons, and had less desirable land to farm for their own needs. Smaller and less productive lands soon reduced the common farmers to dire poverty and want.

  “Where there had been rich fields of corn and yams, there were now bare patches of poor barley and coarse peas. The good common feeling and mutal concern, of the ancient times, between the Barons and their Bungeons withered. The Barons went about in fine silk, while mother’s family sometimes boiled their shoes with grass to make soup.

  “In spite of their troubles, Bram’s cottage had one wealth that Barons might die for, had they knowledge of it. The cottage, with only one poor window, an empty pantry, and rarely a set of clothes without patches, still and all had fourteen loving hearts and educated minds. If Bram’s family was poor in the ways of the world, they were rich in ‘the wealth that cannot be taken or taxed,’ as Mother used to say.

  “Bram’s parents decided that, ‘If we be poor and hungry, our children will not be beggars in their minds!’ They taught each of their young beasts to read and learn all they could. They believed that reading was worth more than sitting outside some great Baron’s door begging for onions. ‘What is in your mind and heart is the only thing that is surely and truly yours,’ my mother learned. ‘Gain all you can of mind and heart and no moth or Baron can take it!’ Each night, the few books they could gather were read again and again by candlelight. During the long winter’s nights, they made plays—creating entire fantastic worlds—out of those few bare books!

  “This was the secret of Bram Dorothea. This was the secret that gave her a life instead of starving humiliation. This is the secret that gave me a mother rather than a slave to the Baron.

  “When Bram Dorothea was sixteen, things grew especially desperate in the Bunge. One year a terrible drought killed many of the crops. The next year it rained too much and more Bunge lands than usual were swept away by flooding. Bram Dorothea and her twin brother, Rideon Morgan, decided to set off on their own and leave the Estates of the Norder Wolves forever.

  “They resolved to sign on as crew of a sailing ship—Dainty’s Shant—bound across the Great Sea. Rideon had met a sea captain who told him that there was work for young beasts in the newly opened lands across the Great Sea. ‘Yes, Bram,’ Rideon said, ‘Captain Ord says that I can easily get work and you can teach school in Port Newolf!’ Excited and hopeful, they signed on to Captain Ord’s crew.

  “Bram and Rideon crossed the Great Sea cleaning and serving for their keep on Dainty’s Shant. Bram taught some of the
sailors to read. She loved to teach reading. It felt like she had found a life for herself. She talked constantly about her dream of becoming a teacher when they reached port. She and Rideon were happy.

  “When I was just a young bit of a Cougar, mother used to play a game with me that recalled those happy days that were such a turning point in her life.” Annie paused for several moments, once again returning to the memories that had stimulated her to tell her story.

  Then she continued: “We would create a make-believe deck of the Dainty’s Shant, and mother told me wonderful yarns. I especially liked the stories about the ship’s carpenter, Klemés ma di son Colé. He taught mother the song I was singing. Mother described him as a weathered old salt—a stocky Wood Cow of medium height, with a bulge of fat around his belly. He had a leathery, sunburned nose and twinkling eyes under heavy lids. Mother made me laugh with her impersonations of him—especially his ‘stormy’ voice. Klemés taught Bram and Rideon how to trail fish lines from the stern of the ship and played impromptu concerts on his flute. He taught them dances with loud stomping and singing, and such antics irked Captain Ord a good deal. Mother said that, one night, the good Captain—fuming in his nightshirt—threatened to spike the deck with nails if the stamping and hollering continued! She said that everyone had a good laugh, but cut the noise immediately.

  “All in all, Captain Ord was a good and just Wolf Salt who took care to see that mother and Rideon arrived in port safely. After docking in Port Newolf, Bram saw something that changed her life. Feeling young and energetic, Bram and Rideon said goodbye to Captain Ord and set out to find situations in Port Newolf. The bustling town made them feel hopeful. Everywhere creatures loaded down with pails and sacks or pulling carts jostled them. Although the town had the look of having sprung up overnight, the muddy streets surged with energy. There surely looked to be plenty of work to do. But they had barely begun exploring the town, when they saw a group of Grizzly Trackers preparing a young Cougar to be hanged on a gallows. Bram was horrified at the sight—a burlap bag tied over his head...Chains circling his entire body...A noose being fitted around his neck. She could not stand the grotesque and barbaric sight. Whatever the Cougar had done did not deserve such treatment! Bram felt nearly sick to her stomach.

  “Forgetting all manners and courtesy, Bram rushed forward and pushed her way toward the Cougar, begging for his life. ‘No, please, don’t hang him! Take me instead! I demand it!’ The Grizzly Trackers were greatly surprised. They had never seen such a thing.

  “At that time, Port Newolf was a wild frontier and rogues and hellions were a dime a dozen. Judgment of criminals was swift and harsh. Most offenders were simply told to ‘move on and not come back.’ Many of the lawless ones were sent into the Drownlands where they lost themselves in the swamps and were forgotten. At times a lawbreaker was sent to the gallows as an example of what could happen if they did not run away. That was the fate of the young Cougar.

  “Murmers in the crowd said that the young Cougar, Stuppy Marit, was a small-time pirate. Others said he was just in unlucky circumstances. No one knew, or really cared. Port Newolf was rough, and justice, at best, was untidy.

  “In the end, Bram’s pleas prevailed. The Grizzly Trackers set Stuppy Marit free, on condition that he head off into the Drownlands and lose himself there. They ordered my mother to go with him. ‘Yea, he goes free on your plea, my lass,’ the Grizzly judge said. ‘But your plea takes you with him. Plead for a no-good, and you become one.’

  “Captain Ord and Rideon tried to rescue Bram from her fate, but to no avail. The Grizzlies, having released one criminal, would not change their minds on another one. Grizzly law on the frontier was stern. ‘Plead for a no-good, and you become one.’ Threatened by the Grizzlies that they would seize his ship and burn it if he continued to argue with them, Captain Ord sadly gave up his attempt to save Bram from exile into the Drownlands. Rumor has it that the good captain soon after gave up sailing and never went to sea again.

  “The story of Bram in the Drownlands is long and has a considerable sadness to it. I will not tell it all to you now. But you must know that my mother was a good and honorable Cougar. She was forever good. She married Stuppy and, for many years, held hope for his reform. At first, she believed his promises that he wanted her to start a school for his workers and the other beasts that were drawn to him. Alas, he was too coarse and uncouth to know what he was promising, or to keep his pledge. Each time a school would be started, King Stuppy would overrule mother’s homework assignments and allow the filth of his scurvy ‘royal court’ to grow. Mother refused to teach school where no one wanted to learn and where everyone had a unique personal stench.

  “But her secret remained. Not even King Stuppy could take it from her. Little by little, the increasing size of King Stuppy’s scurvy crowd, and the mounting tide of filth and vile odors they brought, caused Bram to silently withdraw her attempts to start a school. But she withdrew with a purpose in mind. She would teach her daughter well. So, even in spite of the King, mother taught me to read and speak a proper tongue.

  “‘I refuse life on the lowest terms for you, Annie,’ she used to say. ‘What is in your mind and heart is the only thing that is surely and truly yours. Gain all you can of mind and heart and no one can take it!’

  “So, you see, friends,” Annie concluded, “my father is King Stuppy Marit—the wealthiest trader, and self-proclaimed ruler, of the Drownlands—but he never cared about me, or my mother. Bram just gradually faded away, like a candle burning out. The wealthier the King got, the more she withdrew and focused on teaching me. She just couldn’t stand the way he treated the creatures. I hated it, too. Finally, I ran away and joined a gang of bandits who were raiding King Stuppy’s traders. I thought it was a great way to get back at him...” She grew thoughtful, staring off into space.

  “But it turned out not to be so great, is that it?” Toshty asked gently.

  Annie sighed. “I’m still looking for the unbroken circle of friends.” She looked at Breister and Toshty. “But maybe I can finally learn everything my mother tried to teach me. Maybe even unfortunate, foolish Cougars—just like crazy Owls—can have a real family?” This was phrased as a question, but sounded more like a statement of hope.

  For several minutes, Annie said nothing more, allowing what she had shared to sink in. She noticed that Breister seemed to be considering something. At last, she asked him about it.

  “What’s on your mind, Breister,” she said. “You look like your thoughts are far away.”

  Breister smiled. “Yes, there was something very interesting to me in your story.”

  Annie looked questioningly at him.

  “I was just thinking how interesting it is,” he began. “I apprenticed with an old Wood Cow carpenter—a retired seafarer. I was just wondering if Bram’s friend might have been the same old salt...His name was Klemés ma di son Colé!”

  “You knew Klemés—the old ship’s carpenter?” Annie exclaimed. “The name is unusual enough that it seems likely that it might be the same one!”

  “Yes,” Breister agreed slowly. “And there’s something especially interesting to me about old Klemés. While I was his apprentice, I took note of his young and lovely granddaughter...Her name was Helbara...”

  A Parting of Ways

  When the travelers arrived, dusty and road weary, at the Cutoff station, they moved quickly toward bed. They hoped to get an early start the next day. As the three friends unloaded their bags, Breister talked pleasantly for a few minutes with Zeke, the station-master, telling him a bit about his travels. A few days later, Zeke, in turn, would entertain a Bayou Dog named Burwell with his stories about the strange trio he had met. But, as he drifted off to sleep, all Breister knew was that he felt a growing sense that he was, at last, somehow close to Helga’s trail.

  Breister, Annie, and Toshty set out early the next morning in the bladder canoe. “We paddle for several days through the backwaters of the Drownlands,” Toshty
explained, “then we travel for a few days up a stream that runs into WooSheep Bottoms. From there, it’s just a short hike to my cabin.”

  The next several days brought a closer sense of friendship among the travelers. Something wonderful had happened to break through the icy loneliness that had long sent Toshty and Annie off on their isolated paths. Breister, for his part, felt a sense of relief and comfort to feel that he could trust these friends. Together, they were all happier and stronger than any of them had been apart.

  On the fourth day of their voyage up the creek toward WooSheep Bottoms, Breister sensed that Annie was agitated. Toshty, too, seemed ill at ease. Something was up, Breister knew, but his friends were not saying what was bothering them.

  The next morning, Breister was roasting some fresh frog legs on a spit for their breakfast, when Annie cleared her throat to get his attention. He looked up at her expectantly, continuing to turn the roasting spit over the campfire.

  Annie smiled at him. She was holding Toshty’s wing in her paw. “Breister,” she began, “Toshty and I have something to tell you.”

  Looking at the joy in the eyes of his friends, Breister felt that he did not really have to be told what they were going to say, but he replied, “I’m all ears. Go ahead.”

  Annie pulled Toshty forward as she moved closed to Breister. “I’m not going any further with you, Breister.” He looked at her questioningly. “As you know, some of my past is not very pleasant. I’m not proud of that. I want to leave that behind me and start a new life. I know there are Grizzly Bear trackers all over the Bottoms looking for me. If I go to the Bottoms, my life will be over...” She stopped and looked at Toshty.

  “I’ve asked Annie to marry me,” Toshty grinned. “And she seems to like crazy old Owls!” He hugged Annie’s shoulder with one of his wings. “So, we’re taking the long route back to the cabin,” Toshty said, with a look of contentment. “We’ll see you there later, perhaps, but don’t wait for us. We’re going back to the Rounds to get married first. Annie can’t go to WooSheep Bottoms, and we don’t want to go to the Drownlands or the WooPeace, so that leaves the Rounds.”

  Breister nodded and smiled at his friends. “I wish you the best...in making your unbroken circle of friends stronger,” he said with a loving look at his happy companions. “Now, I just need to find the rest of my circle!”

  “Don’t worry, Breister,” Toshty replied. “We’re not leaving you in the lurch! I can give you directions to my cabin. When you get there, make yourself at home...” He paused, looking embarrassed. “I actually need you to do something for me there,” he continued. “I have some art lessons scheduled for tomorrow. There will be a couple of Otters and a Fox who will come to the cabin expecting me to teach them to paint,” he laughed. “I’d be much obliged if you would be there to tell them that, well, uh,” he smiled at Annie, “that art lessons are postponed until further notice!”

  Breister smiled, but felt a bit annoyed. His friends were leaving him. Not only that, but helping Toshty might delay his own search for Helga.

  “And, Breister,” Toshty said, “the young Fox I mentioned—name’s JanWoo-Corriboo—she’s one of the most amazing young beasts you’ll ever meet. She can take you to the ‘Mountain That Moves But Stands Still’—you can trust her completely and she’s as brilliant as they come. You’ll be in good hands with her. If your Helga is anywhere to be found, JanWoo-Corriboo can help you find her.”

  Breister’s annoyance evaporated. He was happy for his friends and felt confident of his path forward. If all was not yet well for him, he felt somehow that things were improving.

  The three friends loaded their belongings back in the bladder canoe and set off again. “We’ll paddle with you a bit further toward the Bottoms,” Toshty said. “There’s a little sandspit that is covered with trees, bushes, and reeds. We’ll drop you off there. It’s not far from my cabin. Then we’ll paddle back to the Drownlands Cutoff to catch the running-wagon back to the Rounds. The next time you see us, we’ll be husband and wife.” Toshty beamed.

  A few hours later, Toshty beached the canoe among some dense reeds. As Breister got out of the canoe, he was well concealed by vegetation. Only the faint rustle of leaves and the gurgling of the stream broke the silence. It was as if they were in a small pocket of life in a vast and barren land.

  “Don’t be fooled by what you see,” Toshty advised. “Just around that bend up ahead lies WooSheep Bottoms. Unless I miss my guess, you’ll start hearing the wild screams of young beasts at the swimming hole as soon as you get out of these trees. But don’t go to the swimming hole. Follow the directions I gave you. You’ll get to the cabin just fine.”

  The friends enjoyed a last round of farewells. Then, Toshty and Annie paddled away. Breister watched their progress for a while until Toshty’s voice came wafting back across the water. “Tell JanWoo-Corriboo that I told her to show you the painting she calls Eye Of The All,” Toshty yelled. “She’ll know what I mean.” With that, the canoe floated around the bend and Breister was alone.

  Breister sat watching the place where the canoe had disappeared. He half-expected Toshty and Annie to reappear. But, no, he didn’t really expect that at all. He just hoped with all his heart that this would not be the last time he would see his friends. Slowly, he reached down and picked up his pack. He took out a piece of Bison bread and, munching on it with a special pleasure coming from his growing connections with the Rounds, he walked away from the river.

  He had not walked more than a few minutes, following the directions that Toshty had given him, when a large squad of Grizzly Bear trackers stepped out of the brush and surrounded him. Although Breister had nothing to fear from the trackers himself, his heart beat wildly.

  Grizzly Bear trackers were specially trained officers of the law, whose task it was to track down the worst rogues and bandits and bring them to justice. They were renowned for their bravery and skill against the most dangerous desperadoes.

  A particularly large Grizzly Bear, with part of his ear gone, and a long scar on his nose, stepped toward Breister. Showing his law badge, he growled, “Where ya been, and where ya goin’?”

  “I’ve been in the Rounds and I’m on my way to see some friends near the Bottoms,” Breister replied. The Grizzly Bear looked him over closely, peering directly into his face, looking for any hint of dishonesty.

  “What’s yer business, and who ya seen?” the Grizzly Bear growled again, fingering a long stout coil of rope that hung from his belt, next to a long Bowie knife. “We’re looking for some Cougar bandits that are in need of this rope,” the tracker snarled unpleasantly. “There’s two nasties that especially need this rope,” he continued. “One’s called Broken Eye, and the other’s Slasher Annie. They’s been terrorizing the innocents in the Bottoms. We tracked them up into the mountains and lost ’em...” The Grizzly Bear ran his finger along the scar on his nose. “This here’s the calling card of those dirtbags,” he declared angrily. “Ya seen anyone?”

  “I hope you get that Broken Eye fellow,” Breister replied calmly. “I hope that scalawag gets just what he deserves,” Breister added. “He attacked me up in the mountains, so I’m glad to see you’re after him.” Breister felt happy. Maybe he could keep them away from the subject of Annie.

  “Who ya seen,” the Grizzly Bear repeated. He obviously was determined to be thorough.

  “I saw an old Owl and his wife,” Breister replied simply. “That’s all I’ve seen in days.”

  “An old Owl and his wife,” the Grizzly Bear repeated, looking intently at Breister. “Ya sure that’s all ya seen?”

  “Yes,” Breister replied with conviction, “I can assure you that that is all I’ve seen—an old Owl and his wife.”

  The Grizzly Bear reached into the pocket of his barkskin coat. He handed Breister a blue pebble. “This is our trackin’ stone,” he explained. “We leave it with ya. You see a sign of Broken Eye and his gang and you show that stone to any law officer and they’ll know that
’s our team. They’ll know how to find us.”

  Breister thanked them. “If I see that old scoundrel or his gang,” Breister assured the trackers, “I’ll use the tracking stone. You can be sure of that.”

  Satisfied, the Grizzlies moved on. Breister walked on a few steps and prepared to leave the stream behind, as he turned inward toward Toshty’s cabin. “Well,” he said to himself looking at the tracking stone, “Broken Eye and his gang are no more. There’s no need for this.” Saying this, Breister skipped the blue stone out across the stream, where it sank to the bottom.

  He continued on his way, reaching Toshty’s cabin in the middle of the afternoon. He made a cheerful fire in the hearth, ate a modest meal of Bison bread, and settled in to wait for Toshty’s students. He was especially looking forward to meeting JanWoo-Corriboo. Perhaps she could help him find Helga.

  Reunited

  Breister was sound asleep, not expecting any visitors to Toshty’s cabin until the following day, when there was a loud rap at the door.

  “Come on, Toshty, wake up!” JanWoo-Corriboo yelled. “I know I’m early for my lesson, but things have gone a little differently than I planned. We’ve got some friends that need your help!”

  Groggily, Breister sat up and rubbed his eyes. It was pitch black. The fire in the hearth had died down to embers. It must be the middle of the night. Who was knocking at this hour?

  “Who’s there?” Breister called. “Toshty is not here. I’m his friend, Breister, who is supposed to wait here for some of Toshty’s friends to arrive. Who are you?” Breister had not yet opened the door, waiting for reply.

  There was a brief silent pause on the other side of the door, and then pandemonium broke out. There was joyful yelling and shouting and banging on the door! “Papa! Papa! It’s Helga! I’m here! Open the door!”

  Completely dumbfounded, Breister threw open the door to the wild embrace of his long-lost daughter. An emotional re-joining of a broken circle of friends occurred. Breister put new kindling on the embers of the fire and soon there was the happy sound of laughter and the smell of fresh Bison coffee being brewed.

  Helga was surprised by the smell. “Bison Coffee!” she exclaimed. “Why, I haven’t smelled that in a while, but it’s a smell you never forget! You’ve been to the Rounds, haven’t you?” she gasped, looking at Breister.

  “Yes, yes, my dear,” Breister replied, “I spent a week in the home of Sareth and Elbin Abblegurt.” He smiled at his daughter, knowing how much this pleased her.

  “Well, I can certainly see that there’s a long story to catch up on,” Helga chuckled.

  “Yes,” Breister agreed, “there is much to tell.”

  As the night wore away, the friends shared stories and learned about each other’s adventures and trials. Breister was saddened to see how much his daughter’s injuries inhibited her movements. His mind reeled as he realized exactly who had been responsible for the attack.

  “Papa, let it go,” Helga consoled him. “It’s over. There’s nothing that you can do to heal my injuries by having anger toward Annie. She wants a new life...one she never had. She’s left the old ways behind. Let us leave the old ways behind, too. I’m more worried about Janty than I am about Annie at this point,” Helga concluded, nodding in the direction of the young Fox, who was sitting alone on the back porch of the cabin. “She’s been there almost all night,” Helga observed, “just staring off into the sky. Something’s eating on her. I’m worried. She’s usually so full of life and energy.”

  Breister nodded. Helga stood up and they walked together over to where JanWoo-Corriboo was sitting.

  “Pretty night, eh?” Helga began. “One of the nice things about isolated areas is that the night sky is so awesome. You don’t see stars like this in town.”

  Janty said nothing. She seemed intent on something she was viewing in the sky. Breister, following a hunch, tried a different approach. “Say, Janty,” he began, “Toshty said to ask you to show me your painting he called Eye Of The All. Do you think you could show it to me sometime?”

  A faint smile flickered on Janty’s lips, “That’s what I’m working on right now,” she replied softly. “I’m not ignoring you, but I don’t want to lose my concentration.”

  Janty was memorizing the night sky. Star by star. Constellation by constellation. She was fixing every star in her memory and giving each of them her own special names. “As I learn all the stars, and give them names, I’ll paint them in one of the caves,” JanWoo-Corriboo explained. “It will be the great work of my life. I call it Eye Of The All because that must be something like what it is for The All—having so many, many preciously beautiful creatures, in so many different patterns, all with their own unique names and places. Don’t you think that’s what The All must be like?”

  Neither Helga nor Breister responded. They were impressed by the image that Janty had offered them, but also sensed a sadness in her voice. “The stars are my family,” she continued, “no matter how much I long for my parents and wish they were with me, I can always count on the stars to be there. No matter what the creatures do, and how foolish they are, the stars are always the same. They’re unmoved by it all. They’re always there for you. That’s what a real family is like.”

  “But, Janty,” Helga said gently, “don’t you think you could have a real family? Don’t you think there might be a way for you and your parents to be united?”

  “NO!” JanWoo-Corriboo shouted. “NO! I don’t think it’s possible! The stupid WooSheep are so fouled up and prejudiced and ignorant, no one can fix it! It’s been going on for centuries and will go on forever! THERE IS NO WAY TO FIX IT! Don’t you see? Don’t you get it?” she cried, breaking into sobs.

  Helga comforted her. “No, Janty, I don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t get how creatures can create something but can’t uncreate it. That’s what doesn’t make any sense to me. If creatures really want to uncreate something, they can. That’s what I believe.” Helga stroked Janty’s hair as the young Fox sobbed with her face buried on Helga’s shoulder.

  At last the sobs began to subside. “Oh, Helga, I so much want to have my parents with me for real and always! But I don’t see how it can ever be,” she said.

  Helga was thoughtful. “Don’t worry about it now, Janty,” Helga replied. “Let Papa and I think about it. There’s got to be a way.”

  “But Janty,” Helga continued, “no matter what, you’ve got to promise me something.”

  “What’s that?” JanWoo-Corriboo asked, looking at Helga through tear-stained eyes.

  “You’ve got to teach me how to see creatures with the Eye Of The All, like you mentioned. That’s a very lovely way to think about it.”

  “None left out, all beautiful,” Janty replied. “That’s about all there is to it.”

  “But it’s a life work, you said, didn’t you?” Helga observed.

  “Yes,” Janty replied, “a life’s work...But a life’s work is a bunch of little details added together. Get enough little details together and you’ve got a life’s work. Pretty simple, eh?” Janty gave Helga a grin with just a hint of mischief in it.

  Helga shook her head. This young Fox was something special.

  The Woonyaks Return

  Breister’s feet hit the stone beach at the bottom of the LuteWoo just as the sun was beginning to penetrate to its depths. He looked up to the opening above him where Helga, Burwell, Bwellina, and Janty waited. He unfastened the rope from around his waist and gave two sharp tugs on the loose end. Helga and Janty pulled it up, to prepare for Helga to descend.

  Helga had convinced Janty to allow her and Breister to return with her to the WooPeace. They hoped to meet with WooZan alone so as to not create a sensation in the WooPeace unnecessarily. Breister knew that WooZan came daily to the LuteWoo. Their plan was to be there when she came and talk with her about the possibility of allowing free visiting to and from the WooPeace.

  “She’s not going to like it,” JanWoo-Corriboo declared with conv
iction. “WooZan is going to blow a cork to find you guys in the LuteWoo when she gets there. Never in recorded history has anyone ever descended through the LuteWoo! Creatures are scared to death of the Fire Beetles that live there.”

  “But, as you know, and we all can see,” Breister observed as he made ready to descend, “there is no multitude of fearsome Fire Beetles here, unless you want to count that centipede over there. I guess if you counted all his legs, that might pass for a multitude!” Everyone laughed, but also realized that what Janty said was true. Although it was clearly open to the outside, for untold generations, no WooSheep had ever tried to enter or leave the WooPeace through the LuteWoo.

  “This is the only chance we have to speak with WooZan privately,” Helga said. “If we are going to have any chance of getting a hearing from her, we must not confront her before the rest of the WooSheep. There is no other way to get a private moment with her, except to try to meet her here in the LuteWoo.”

  “But this is also just about the worst place to meet her,” JanWoo-Corriboo added worriedly. “This is her place of personal reflection. It’s as if we’re confronting her in her personal retreat. She’s not going to like it.”

  “I know,” Helga agreed, “but how else to get a moment with her? She would like it even less if we showed up at the Common Bowl and started talking to the WooSheep about opening up to the outside!”

  “Well,” Helga declared grimly, “we’ll soon know how WooZan will like it. Here goes nothing!” With her pack securely strapped to her back, Helga tied the safety rope around her waist.

  Janty and Burwell lowered Helga down to where Breister waited. She unattached herself, tugged twice, and the empty rope shot up out of the LuteWoo. Janty was tying it around her waist, and was about to follow Helga down, when a loud commotion from below caused her and Burwell to halt their activities and draw back away from the edge. Clearly WooZan had arrived, and she was not happy.

  “Is it you? The Wood Cow Woonyak, returned?” WooZan screeched. “How dare you return? How dare you drop into the LuteWoo like this? Are you mad? Hunjah!” WooZan calmed herself suddenly, and dropping her voice said in more pleasant tones, “No, I’m sorry. You startled me so badly. This has never happened before. I did not know what to say. I’m sorry I yelled at you. Hunjah!” The hairs on Helga’s neck bristled with caution. She did not trust WooZan.

  “Why have you come here?” WooZan asked. “What can this humble servant of the WooPeace do for you? You surely have come for something. You did not plan to come here, where you knew you would find me, if you did not want something from me. What can this humble servant do for you?”

  “We have come to ask you to open the WooPeace to regular visiting with outsiders—with creatures from the world above,” Breister replied.

  “You don’t know what you are asking,” WooZan said, shaking her head sadly. “The only true peace is in the WooPeace. No, you do not know what you ask. But the WooSheep know. They know that only great evil can come upon us from discontents and rebels like you. You do not know this, but I know this, and the rest of the WooSheep know it, too. Hunjah!”

  “Don’t be so sure, WooZan,” Helga replied. “We know many creatures, both in the WooPeace and in the WooSheep Bottoms above, who want the two worlds to come together, or at least open to visits from family.”

  “There are no WooSheep above,” WooZan declared. “Only the dead exist in the realm above!”

  “But are we dead?” Helga demanded. “We have come from the world above and we are flesh and blood just like you. You don’t deny that, surely?”

  “Yes, I know who you are, and why you are here,” WooZan replied with a faint, but noticeable coldness. “It matters not that you are real creatures. You have come to disturb the tranquility of the WooPeace. That is all I need to know. You do not exist. You cannot exist. Hunjah!”

  “But, WooZan,” Helga pressed on, “how can you say that something that clearly exists, does not exist? You are a wise and intelligent creature. I see the wonders of what you and all the generations of WooZans have accomplished here. We do not wish to destroy it. We just want creatures to be able to live in both worlds, if they wish.”

  “You are a fool!” WooZan replied. “The very fact of your seeming to exist in both worlds will destroy the peace of the WooSheep in both worlds. Both worlds cannot exist. The WooPeace is happy and at peace. I’m sure the WooSheep at the Bottoms have their own type of happiness and peace. So be it. I care not about that. But different happinesses cannot exist together. Such thinking will destroy both. Hunjah!” WooZan’s voice left its traces of friendliness behind and became colder.

  “WooZan,” Helga continued her appeal, “there are children separated from their parents...running in hiding to see them. There are grandparents who have never seen their grandchildren. There are creatures that have not seen old and dear friends in many years. There are creatures that have never visited the honored graves of their ancestors. Surely this cannot be the peace and happiness you speak of?”

  “The Woonyaks who leave the WooPeace have chosen these things for themselves,” WooZan declared. “We welcome all Woonyaks with open arms and the warmest hospitality we can offer.” WooZan looked at Breister. “This Wood Cow was a Woonyak. Tell her, Woonyak. Tell her how you were received here. Tell her how I pulled your nearly dead body out of the freezing water and gave you life. Tell her how you were saved and welcomed. Tell her these things. Or are you only a traitor and a rebel, who thinks only of himself and what he wants, moment to moment? Tell her how you were saved and welcomed. That will reveal the truth. Hunjah!”

  Breister was silent for a moment, pondering what WooZan had said. Then he replied, “WooZan, we have not come to disturb the WooPeace. I think you know that. When you rescued me and cared for me and welcomed me, you did so as creature to creature, as friend to friend. I recall how you gently laid my nearly lifeless body on a soft pallet here in the LuteWoo...on this very spot! I recall your pride as you showed me the WooPeace and introduced me to the Common Bowl. I respect all these things. They were done as one creature to another creature, not as WooZan to Woonyak. We have not come to destroy the creature-to-creature caring and love you showed to me, but to show it to others. Is that wrong? Do you not have brothers and sisters in the other world also?”

  WooZan laughed. “So it is worse than I thought,” she said with a cool smile. “You are not simple fools after all. You do know what you are doing. You have come to consciously re-make the WooPeace according to your own fantastic ideas. Well, you have not the right to do so!” She paused, closing her eyes as if considering what to say next.

  “The WooZans of the past have given the WooPeace centuries of undisturbed peace.” WooZan continued. “The WooPeace is still in the hands of the WooZan. I am well able to protect the peace and happiness of the WooSheep. Hunjah! I have no need of your fantastic dreams that the two worlds can ever be one. If you meddle further in the affairs of my creatures, I will have to look at you in the light of rebellion. There will be no ‘creature to creature,’ as you put it. I will act as the WooZan, and do as I must. You will stand before me as a Woonyak rebel, and be judged as you must. Hunjah!”

  Helga looked intently at WooZan. She began to see something that she had noticed before, but had not understood. WooZan was looking at the skylights as she spoke. Her eyes never looked at either Breister or Helga. It was as if they were not there and WooZan were talking to herself. This perception sent a chill down Helga’s spine. “WooZan,” she asked, “who lives in the WooPeace? Is it creatures, or some illusion of your own dreams? I see creatures that love and laugh and feel things for each other. I think you see only the ‘WooPeace’—some image you have in your mind. But, I don’t think any creatures live there.” Helga paused and looked directly at WooZan, trying to make contact eye-to-eye. WooZan still did not look at her. She kept her eyes raised past her.

  After a few moments, she spoke. “Yes, for many generations, the WooPeace has existed in hap
piness and peace. Those that live here, live according to the WooPeace, or they do not live here.” Now WooZan lowered her eyes and looked directly at Helga with a cold stare. “You want the two worlds of WooSheep to become one. You think this will make the creatures happy. But then there will be differences and arguments about what the WooPeace is, or should be. The WooPeace will be destroyed if such a thing comes to pass. For centuries, the WooSheep have been assured that they lived in perfect happiness and peace. That has been the doing of the WooZans. Hunjah! You wish to destroy the WooPeace...” WooZan’s voice grew soft and cold. She stepped closer to Helga and looked directly into her eyes for the first time. “And you wish to destroy the WooZans.” She said nothing more, but the cold, intense gleam in her eyes said all that Helga needed to know.

  WooZan turned away and walked toward where her boat was beached. “You wish to take away the WooPeace. That is clear,” she said. “So be it. We shall see what the Council of Inquiry has to say. I will summon them. Tomorrow they will give their verdict. If you agree to wait here until tomorrow afternoon, the Council of Inquiry will decide. Hunjah!” WooZan’s voice had an icy edge that made the coolness of the cave seem even colder.

  “The Council meets at noon,” WooZan explained. “I will return with its decision shortly after noon tomorrow. I will bring you food enough for the night and you will be my guests. Tomorrow you will hear the verdict.” WooZan mounted her boat and moved off into the darkness beyond the circle of light at the bottom of the LuteWoo.

  “Whoa, that WooZan gives me the creeps,” Helga shivered.

  “Yeah, and what’s this business about the Council of Inquiry?” Breister wondered.

  “I don’t know,” Helga replied, “but I didn’t like the way she said it. She’ll be back with our food soon, and then we’ll try to consult with Janty and the others. We need a plan.”

  Janty, Burwell, and Bwellina were lying hidden at the top of the LuteWoo, straining to hear what was happening below. Fortunately, sound carried well in the cave and they heard much of what was said. The instant WooZan had left, JanWoo-Corriboo was down the rope in a flash. She had barely hit the ground when she whispered urgently, “Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here. The Council of Inquiry only has two outcomes: exile or death. WooZan knows you’re too dangerous to her precious WooPeace to allow you to go free. You’ll be killed!”

  “So, the gentle, humble WooZan is not so gentle and humble, eh?” Breister observed. “Some WooPeace!” he said with a hollow laugh.

  “Oh, it’s gentle and peaceful, all right,” Janty said, speaking rapidly with excitement. “If the Council of Inquiry decides someone should die, they are simply blindfolded and conducted deep, deep into the uncharted, deepest parts of the cave system and left there. No one hears from those poor souls ever again. That’s exactly what she’s got in mind for you! We’ve got to get you out of here. This was not a good idea!”

  “No, Janty, not so fast,” Helga replied in a determined voice. “Let me think. We have until tomorrow at least. I have my flicker-pole for protection. If they try to take us, I’ll bring every bird within 20 miles in on her head. No, we’ll be O.K. We are not going to simply run away. That is probably what she most wants to happen. Either we change our minds and join the WooPeace, or we flee—that’s what she hopes. But she did not count on how determined a Wood Cow can be.”

  Helga now directed Janty with a low whisper: “Go back up and lie low. Let WooZan bring us our food. I don’t think she will leave a guard. She wants us to think she’s friendly. And she hopes we will flee and leave her little fiefdom alone. I think she’ll play it straight with us tonight. But she will surely come back tomorrow with the means to—shall we say, make us stay a long time?” The friends looked at one another grimly, and then Janty gave two tugs on the rope. Burwell and Bwellina pulled her back up out of the LuteWoo.

  After a few more minutes, Breister and Helga heard the soft sound of a boat paddling across the water. WooZan landed shortly and began unloading a hearty picnic of WooSheep delicacies. She was clearly putting out the best the WooPeace had to offer for the campers in the LuteWoo: Salamander Strips with Hot Sauce, Dried Frog Legs and Whizzle Dip, Moss Chips, and Cold Bat Milk Soup.

  “I hope you will be happy and comfortable here tonight, my friends,” WooZan said in a friendly tone. “I have brought you a delightful picnic and some soft pallets for your comfort. I hope you will ponder the bounties and wonders of the WooPeace,” she continued. “You deserve to reflect deeply on why you have come. Perhaps you have come to stay a while? Many who have come have stayed forever. You may change your mind. Hunjah!” She bowed and then paddled off into the darkness.

  Helga and Breister waited until all sounds of the boat had died away. Then Helga whispered up towards her friends, “O.K. Let Janty back down.”

  In a few moments, Janty was at the bottom of the rope. “Whoa, Janty,” Helga said, impressed. “I’ve never seen anyone climb a rope that fast before! You’re a very good climber!” Helga praised her with a smile. She was getting the seeds of an idea.

  Janty looked at Helga expectantly, awaiting instructions, pulsing with energy. Helga smiled. “Sit down for a moment, Janty,” she invited. “You will need every bit of energy you can muster soon. I need a few minutes to think and develop an idea I am having.”

  Janty crouched down on her haunches, bouncing softly on the balls of her feet, gazing up through the LuteWoo. “You know why this is called the ‘Mountain That Moves But Stands Still?’ she asked Breister, who was sitting nearby, also looking up through the skylight.

  “No,” Breister replied, “but I’d sure like to know. I thought it was because this is an old volcano and the ground used to tremble from that.”

  “Yes...and no,” Janty replied. “The ancient stories tell of the times when the ground trembled here. But the references to the ‘Mountain That Moves But Stands Still’ only begin to turn up in the history of our people when the first WooSheep discovered the LuteWoo. They noticed how sitting down here, you see the stars, sun, and moon pass by overhead as if you are moving, but you are not. They were amazed how it felt like movement, but was not. That is where the name came from.”

  Breister nodded. “Yes, I know that feeling,” he agreed. “Isn’t it interesting how being buried deep in solid rock can feel like you are moving. It’s a powerful illusion. The WooSheep see this place as a prison.”

  “Well,” Helga interrupted. “I think I’ve figured out a way to free them from that prison! Here’s an idea.”

  Helga quickly shared her idea, and after a few minutes’ consultation she was able to give a final summary of the plan.

  “So,” she said quickly, “Janty is going door-to-door in the Bottoms. She is going to contact every WooSheep household she can and tell them to gather at the ‘Mountain That Moves But Stands Still.’ She’ll explain to them that she has proven that there are no Venom Bats and that the way is open to visit friends and family in the WooPeace. Not everyone will believe her. Many will think she is crazy or they will still be too scared to come.” Helga paused and smiled at her friends. “But, I believe that many will come. There are many creatures who have long thought this whole WooSheep situation was nuts.” She grinned at Janty. “I may have been the first to say it out loud, but I’m sure many WooSheep have thought that for a long time. Many will come. Tell them to be here tomorrow morning at sunrise,” Helga concluded.

  JanWoo-Corriboo drew a deep breath. “And while I am inviting the WooSheep at the Bottoms to come, Burwell and Bwellina will be gathering every scrap of wood and driftwood they can find and piling it near the opening to the LuteWoo,” she continued. “When I get back, I will help move the wood and other supplies up and down the rope as quickly as possible.” She looked at Helga and Breister with a look of fond appreciation and hope.

  “And we will do what Wood Cows do best!” Breister said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Helga. “We will make the world’s sturdiest ladder! We’ll make a w
ay for every creature that wants to come meet WooZan to do so!” Breister chuckled. “WooZan will see just how many creatures want to visit friends and relatives in the WooPeace.”

  Helga smiled, and thought silently to herself, “We hope.”

  Throughout the day, Janty scurried around the Bottoms inviting the WooSheep to visit the WooPeace, while Burwell and Bwellina carried load after load of tree branches and driftwood to the entrance to the LuteWoo.

  As darkness descended, Janty returned. She was tired but encouraged. “I think many of the WooSheep will come,” she said excitedly. “Some were doubtful and a few even shut their doors in my face before I finished telling them what was happening. But I could see joy and hope in the faces of many. At least we’d better have that ladder ready!”

  The quivering, natural energy that Helga had noticed in JanWoo-Corriboo from the first time she had seen her was put to good effect throughout the night. Despite running all over the Bottoms delivering invitations, Janty was called upon to make countless trips up and down the ladder delivering materials to Breister and Helga. She worked tirelessly, as did the rest of her determined friends. As they worked through the night, almost without consciousness, a simple song began to rise, first as a tune hummed by Janty, then turning to words sung over and over through the night:

  A family is

  a circle of friends.

  Unbroken,

  let the circle be.

  Using every talent and skill of the Wood Cow traditions, Breister and Helga listened for the qualities of the wood being brought to them. They were greatly encouraged. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a chorus of willing woods,” Helga commented joyfully. “It’s as if the entire pile of wood that Burwell and Bwellina has gathered is saying, “Choose me! Use me! I want to be a part of this ladder!”

  “Yes,” Breister replied, as he tied stout knots to lash the ladder securely together. “Some of the wood we have is not very pretty and would be discarded by most carpenters. But if the wood is willing, it is the strongest of all, no matter what it looks like.” Wishing to avoid damage to the LuteWoo, and leave no debris behind, Breister and Helga used only rough wood and lashings in their construction. All manner of sizes and shapes were tied together in an amazingly strong, yet very unusual, structure.

  The remarkable Wood Cow skills were revealed in a most improbable ladder that grew in length and strength throughout the night. Working in almost complete darkness, Helga stopped repeatedly to play some notes on the pronghorn flute to help her and Breister ‘see’ their surroundings well enough to carry on their work. She wished that she had been a better student when Miss Note was trying to teach her to play so many years ago. “If only I had paid better attention,” Helga thought ruefully. “But, at least I memorized the ‘sounding notes’—so I can use the flute tonight to help us see!” She silently promised herself that, if she ever got the chance to take flute lessons again, she would be more attentive. “If Edna Note could see me now, what would she think!” Helga chuckled.

  “I begin to see the ways of the Wood Cows,” JanWoo-Corriboo reflected as she went up and down the rope. “Listening with respect is everything. They listen to the wood. They listen to the rocks. And then these humble materials arise to help them! It’s amazing! Who would have believed it! The actual carpentry work they do all depends on listening well. If they did not have these ways, this project could not be done. Most creatures would look at what they were doing here tonight and say it was impossible. Yet, they are doing it!” And as she climbed and reflected, the song grew louder and louder in her heart.

  A family is

  a circle of friends.

  Unbroken,

  let the circle be.

  WooPeace Airlift

  The afternoon light was filtering into the LuteWoo when WooZan’s boat paddled out of the darkness. As her boat came to the stone bank, she looked with dismay on an amazing sight. Hundreds of WooSheep filled the rocky ledges of the LuteWoo, and a steady stream of Otters, Sheep, Geese, Foxes, and other creatures were still descending the long ladder Breister and Helga had constructed.

  So filled with creatures was the LuteWoo, that WooZan found nowhere to land her boat. Paddling her boat as close to the bank as possible, she called for ‘the rebel Wood Cows’ to come to her.

  Helga and Breister stepped through the crowd and addressed WooZan. “You see the creatures that care about creatures in the WooPeace,” Helga said. “These are not illusions. They are not images of some perfect picture in your mind. These are real creatures that love and care for real creatures in the WooPeace. That is all they want.”

  WooZan was livid with anger. She replied with cold fury. “I had hoped you would depart in the night. But you have chosen to remain. The Council of Inquiry has handed down its verdict. You will be conducted—” She stopped speaking abruptly; her eyes fixed on the ladder.

  Slowly, carefully, rung-by-rung, a very elderly, wrinkled Sheep was descending. She was looking toward WooZan with kindly eyes. Helga, who had experienced long separation from her parents also could never mistake the meaning of the look. “That is WooZan’s mother,” Helga breathed, “or I do not know my own feelings.” Breister nodded.

  WooZan, who had been sitting stiffly in her boat, plunged over the side and half-splashed, half-waded, to the rocky bank. She clambered out of the water and pushed her way through the crowd. The crowd parted to let her pass, staring in astonishment. WooZan reached the base of the ladder just in time to help her mother take the last steps. Gently and with genuine love, WooZan embraced the aged Sheep.

  The crowds of WooSheep fell into silence, knowing that they were in the presence of a blessed event. Some minutes passed, as WooZan and her mother embraced and tears flowed freely from both.

  At last, WooZan turned and spoke to Helga who was standing nearby. “You have had a lost parent. You know the feelings one has. But you may not know the feelings one has as a daughter who knows that her mother will die if she stays with her. My mother, MoontZant-Woo, had an illness that no one in the WooPeace could heal. A Woonyak came. He spoke of hot springs that could heal her. I made up a story about her being a rebel and she was sentenced to die, but when I conducted her to the deep caves as is done in such cases, I took her to the exit instead. She understood what I was doing and why. It was the last time I saw her. I never knew if she had lived and been healed until I saw her coming down.”

  WooZan’s fierce, cold manner had now vanished. She looked at the continuing stream of WooSheep descending the ladder. “We have to do something,” she smiled at Helga, “there is no more room here for WooSheep. I will call for boats and we will ferry people to the WooPeace. We will have the greatest, most festive Common Bowl in WooPeace memory!”

  Burwell, who had been helping WooSheep begin their descent of the ladder, was signaling frantically at Breister and Helga. “What is it, Burwell?” Breister hollered up to him.

  “Ask WooZan if we can bring food from the WooSheep Bottoms also,” Burwell yelled back. “I’ve heard about the WooPeace diet...nothing cooked...Salamander Parts...Bat Milk...Frog Guts...Catfish and Moss Sushi...Can’t we bring some more food?...Please?” he pleaded in a plaintive voice.

  Everyone, including WooZan, laughed heartily. “Well, I guess this is a new day,” she replied. “If people are going to be able to come and go as they wish, I guess they should be able to choose what they eat also. Bring on the food from the Bottoms!”

  “Helga,” Breister commented quietly, “that ladder is never going to be adequate for this. Once creatures in the Bottoms hear about this, they are all going to come running! The ladder won’t be able to handle all the traffic, especially if they are all bringing dishes for the feast!” he laughed.

  “Well,” Helga replied happily, “that’s an entirely different problem than we had yesterday! I think I know what we can do.”

  “I’ll play my flicker-pole for just a moment or so. I don’t want every bird within 20 miles, of course,” she gr
inned. “I’ll play it just long enough to attract the birds, say, within one mile. That ought to do nicely to get helpers for a supplemental airlift!”

  Breister looked admiringly at his daughter. “Helga, you never cease to amaze me,” he said, shaking his head in bemused respect.

  As WooZan set off in her boat to summon other boats to carry the visitors to the WooPeace, Helga began to work her flicker-pole. The characteristic tones filled the cave and wafted up through the LuteWoo. When the first birds began to appear and drop down through the LuteWoo skylights, Helga stopped. “There, that will be enough, I think,” she observed. “By the time the rest of the birds who were first attracted get here, we’ll have plenty for our airlift.”

  One by one the birds arrived, and settled onto perches in the LuteWoo. As they gathered, Helga explained to them what she wanted. They readily agreed. The large birds, such as Eagles, Owls, Geese and Cranes were assigned to carry young beasts down into the LuteWoo, leaving the ladder for adults. The children hooped and hollered as they took the thrilling ride down on the airlift.

  The smaller birds—Jays, Robins, Meadowlarks, Woodpeckers, and Sparrows—carried all kinds of packages and parcels containing foods for the feast.

  In later years, the ‘WooPeace Airlift’ was one of the most famed events in the common history of the WooSheep clans. But not only because of the wonderful help all the various birds provided. The fame of the WooPeace Airlift also had to do with a certain ‘crazy old Owl’ and his soon-to-be wife...

  New Scenes for Toshty’s Painting

  After leaving Breister on the sandspit near WooSheep Bottoms, Toshty and Annie paddled for the rest of the day, then Annie asked that they stop for a while. Toshty sensed that something had been bothering her ever since they had left Breister.

  Pulling over to the bank, Toshty held on to a bush to keep the canoe from floating downstream. “What do you want, Annie? Shall we stop here for the night?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t want to rest,” Annie replied with a sigh. “I want to turn around and paddle back the way we came.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” Toshty replied in surprise. “You’re not sorry we’re going to get married, I hope?”

  “Oh, no!” Annie exclaimed happily. “I so want to be married, but...,” she paused, then continued, “my heart has been burning since we left Breister. I caused great pain for him and his family. I feel like a hypocrite to do all this mushy talk-talk about ‘family is an unbroken circle of friends’ when I...Well, when I helped to break his circle!” Annie sighed sorrowfully.

  “I can’t marry you until I figure out a way to at least say I’m sorry, or do something to help him,” Annie concluded.

  Toshty looked at Annie with love and pride. “You are a great lady, Annie!” Toshty replied. “I don’t know what we can do, but I don’t mind delaying our wedding long enough to try to help him...Especially if it will help you to be happy and at peace!” he added.

  As they paddled back upstream towards the Bottoms, Toshty and Annie discussed what they could do. Exploring many possibilities, and discarding them one by one, they finally hit upon a plan that felt right. They would go to Toshty’s studio in the caves, through which they could secretly enter the WooPeace. Once there, they would try to locate Breister. Annie would give her genuine apology for the pain she had caused and they would offer to help him in any way they could. “Leaving the past behind does not mean leaving wounds unhealed,” Annie said. “I’m not going to start a new life with you while this sore I helped create still festers in Breister’s life.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Toshty agreed. “How much Breister is able to heal depends on a lot of things we can’t control,” he added. “But we’ll give it our best go...A family is an unbroken circle of friends, and Breister’s in our family now.”

  They arrived in Toshty’s studio and rested there for a while before preparing to proceed further through the cave system to the WooPeace. Just as they were about to leave the studio, Toshty began to act very strangely. As if he had suddenly gone mad, he began to wildly flap his wings and throw himself at the walls of his studio, as if trying to fly through the stone wall!

  “Toshty!” Annie screamed, “What are you doing? Have you gone mad? What’s the matter?”

  Toshty did not respond, but simply threw himself more and more frantically against the walls. Feathers flew as Toshty wildly flapped his wings like a bird possessed by some wild spirit. “AWWK! OOOFFT! SQWAAAK! OOOFFPT! OOOO!” Toshty, battered and spent, covered with broken feathers, sank to the floor in dazed frustration. “Oooohh...” he groaned, rubbing his battered head. “What a terrible time for the ‘help bugle’ to sound!”

  “The help bugle?” Annie asked.

  Rubbing his head, Toshty got to his feet and prepared to throw himself at the rock walls once again. “It’s an irresistible call for help and all birds by nature respond. Whenever the bugle sounds, any bird that hears has got to go. It’s a sacred duty. It’s just like a switch is thrown in a bird’s brain...Ooops! I’m talking too much, gotta go!”

  Zoom! Crash! “OOOFT!”

  Annie turned her eyes away. The sight of her beloved Toshty battering himself against the solid rock walls was too painful to watch. Slumping down against the wall, she felt dejected and sad. “What a wedding party this has turned out to be!” she groaned. “Toshty will be lucky to walk away from this with his brains intact. I’ll have a husband capable of only vacant looks for the rest of his life. I’ve got to do something. Maybe I have some rope in my pack...I’ll tackle him and tie him up until this madness passes.” She rummaged frantically in her old, battered bandit’s pack looking for some rope.

  “Where are things when you need them?” she muttered. “Moldy bandit’s mush, Grizzly Bear Army knife, clothes, maps, bits of biscuits, flash gourd, scissors...Flash gourd!” Annie howled with glee. “Yeowzer! I forgot I had this! This is just what the doctor ordered!” she exulted. “This is one time that knowing a little something about explosives will come in handy...I’ve gotta hurry though...That dazed and vacant look will be in Toshty’s eyes permanently if I don’t do something to get him where he wants to go!”

  “Hmmm...,” she mused, surveying the studio. “Gotta be careful. Don’t want to blow up Toshty’s life work! Let’s see...there’s got to be a good place for this.” Looking around the studio quickly, Annie located a small, deep crevice leading in the direction Toshty apparently wanted to go. She carefully packed the flash gourd as deep in the crack as possible, letting the long fuse hang back out in the studio. Then she took rags that Toshty had for cleaning up his paint brushes and stuffed them in the crack behind the flash gourd, packing it in securely. “I want the main force of the blast to go the other direction,” she said to herself. “Please let the blast blow the other way!”

  Lighting the fuse, Annie rushed at Toshty and hurtled him to the floor just as the flash gourd detonated. KA-BOOOOM! The studio shuddered and shook, dust and small pebbles showering down on them. Annie lifted her head and looked around. Toshty’s paintings were intact! There was a huge, jagged hole torn in the wall where the flash gourd had been lodged.

  Annie could see a crowd of creatures standing on the other side of a lake looking at her in amazement. The blast had ripped a hole through to the LuteWoo, but the lake had buffered the creatures from the blast debris!

  As Annie and Toshty stepped through the new opening to survey what was happening in the LuteWoo, the slanting afternoon rays of the sun, streaming through the skylights fell on Toshty’s painting of the history of the WooSheep. The colors were brilliant in the sun. Annie and Toshty, as they watched the amazing scene unfolding in the WooPeace, sensed that new scenes would need to be added to the painting.

  Shipwrecked Sea-beasts

  The feast in the WooPeace on that memorable occasion was an epic of unlimited digestion. A world changed for the better, and the wild joy that came as a result, made beasts daring enough to try strange food and drink.
Cheerful courage and curiosity led many a beast to sample delicacies they would have once despised as the product of savage cooks and hateful kitchens. More than a few were so besotted with the pleasant chaos that they cared not whether they liked what was set before them. Like many a fool or famished wanderer, they liked anything that touched their lips.

  Beasts of both persuasions—of the WooPeace and of WooSheep Bottoms—were generous and praised each other’s provisions till the casks ran dry and the victuals were gone. There were Cave Crabs, black and orange; the black ones packed with eggs that, when tossed in sizzling oil, popped up into crunchy, toasted orbs three-times their size, that even Burwell greedily devoured. And more than Burwell were surprised to discover that Cave Bat Tongues Sautéed in Lizard Fat made a dish fit for the finest table.

  The Armadillo Pie in the Shell contributed by the WooSheep was judged by all to be very good eating; and some thought their Rattlesnake Fillets worth dying for, especially when drizzled with spicy Pear Salsa. But the Buff-Jacket Tarts—dried sour cherries, tart apples, rose hips, and honey mashed into a lump, then boiled in a bag, and the juice squeezed out for a tangy drink, before the mash was baked inside flaky, melt-in-your-mouth pastry—those were Helga’s favorite.

  A good feast requires good drink and the sparkling Phillup Phizz made from strawberries and apriot nectar was so deliciously sweet and plentiful that many beasts “grew fat simply by smelling it,” as Breister put it. But Burwell, true to himself, preferred the bubbly Lamb’s Wool Sparkle—mashed carrots mixed with apple cider and sparkling water—soft and smooth, but full of fizz.

  As the day passed and light began to fail in the LuteWoo, the glorious celebration gradually finished with the beasts swapping yarns while sucking on hard dark chocolate nuggets. The delectable sweet nuggets, rock hard and too solid to chew, took nearly an hour to melt away in the mouth. Stuffed silly and tired out, a contented happiness settled over the feasters. On all sides, beasts of all shapes, sizes, and ages—young and old, male and female, large and small, gathered to share final farewells as the celebration began to break up. Spontaneously, as if by some unseen signal, the beasts gathered around Helga—all knew that she was the root of the great change that had occurred and, beyond that, the first stranger to walk willingly into the WooPeace in living memory!

  Almost without a conscious thought, the simple song began to rise again, the words sung with a simple, heartfelt pleasure that was a fitting dessert for the feast:

  A family is

  a circle of friends.

  Unbroken,

  let the circle be.

  The song drew long-separated hearts closer together, like scattered iron filings clinging to a magnet. Then the celebrators gradually began to go home or pitch in on the clean up. Late into the night, the spirit of unity kept tired beasts working together, helping the WooSheep depart and cleaning up the remains of the feast. Amidst the crush of beasts coming and going, Helga and Breister did not work together, each picking up whatever needed to be done. Helga, in fact, worked side by side with Janty, her tiredness having no effect on her happiness as she enjoyed every moment with her new friend.

  As the clean-up operations ended, Helga found her father and told him that she was going to walk Janty back to WooSheep Bottoms. “The night will be nearly over by the time we get to the Bottoms,” she said, “so I’ll catch some sleep at Janty’s place, then meet you at Toshty’s cabin tomorrow afternoon.” Breister agreed and Helga climbed the ladder out of the LuteWoo with Janty.

  Soon after, Breister dragged his own weary body up the ladder and made his way back to Toshty’s cabin. With a brief greeting and good night to Toshty and Annie, Breister tumbled into bed and fell into a deep exhausted sleep.

  The sun was already well up in the sky when Breister awoke. Slowly waking, he lay quietly for a while, just enjoying the soft morning light and cool breeze blowing in through the window. Gradually rousing himself, Breister pulled on his clothes and wandered out of his room, looking for Toshty and Annie.

  He found them sitting at the hearth drinking coffee. Upon seeing Breister, Toshty came to him and said, “Here’s something you’ll like to see.” Smiling gently, but with a look of sadness, Toshty handed Breister a neatly folded piece of paper. “This message arrived from WooSheep Bottoms via Courier Hawk a little while ago.”

  Breister read the message, which ran:

  Beloved father,

  I am sorry to miss my meeting with you. But I am leaving WooSheep Bottoms in haste because a most unusual encounter left me no choice. Going back to the Bottoms after we left you last night, we took a shortcut through a place locals call Scurryvaig Haunt, because alot of strange wanderers and beasts from foreign lands roam through there. Not far away, Dismal Pass leads through the mountains to the Great Sea and many a vagabond comes through there. Anyway, there we met a Seabird who says he saw a ship in great trouble as he flew along the coast.

  The ship was run aground and badly damaged, but the Seabird does not know much else about it, except that the crew will be in great danger from Wrackshees. I must help them if I can. They will need a good carpenter and I would do anything to prevent them being taken by Wrackshees. There is no time to waste. I must go quickly if I am to make a difference. Do not worry. I will return soon. Toshty won’t mind you resting there at his cabin until I get back.

  When I return, we can go on to the Rounds as we plan—I can’t wait to see my friends there again. But, first, my conscience calls me to help these unfortunate sea-beasts. I know what danger they are in.

  So, you see how it is. I feel heartsick to leave you and I hope that you understand. I almost fear that I love you so well that I will not be able to do what justice demands me to do—

  I shall say no more to worry you, adding only that I send you my love and the promise to see you soon.

  I will always be,

  Your most affectionate,

         Helga

  Finishing the letter, Breister folded it carefully and gave it back to Toshty. “Helga does not love so much that love blinds her to justice; nor hate injustice so deeply to be blinded to kindness. Yes, my daughter wrote that letter.”

  Smiling at Toshty and Annie, Breister shook his head and continued, “I trust Helga and will allow her to do as she wishes with this—as if there were a thing I could do to stop her! But I’ll not leave her to face this danger alone and another carpenter will speed up the repairs. I will head across Dismal Pass myself and help her.”

  “Annie and I will go with you!” Toshty cried. “We are brave beasts and,” he paused, smiling at his beloved Cougar, “Annie knows a thing or two about the ways of rogues and bandits! We are in this with you!”

  “Yes,” Annie said, “we are in this with you. We are now an unbroken circle of friends.”

  Book Three

  Tokens of Unseen Realms

  Wrackshees at the Outer Rings

   “Crinoo! Zarr!” Red Whale cursed as a grim smile spread across his face. The dawn streaking the horizon cast a pale red glow, dimly revealing an ugly scene. Shattered masts, ruined sails, and tangled webs of riggings covered the deck of the old seafarer’s once impressive ship, Daring Dream. The ship had been virtually shaved clean of its masts and sails—as if a huge blade had sliced them off. Although the sturdy ship had survived battering from a ferocious storm during the night, Red Whale was left with little more than a raft. The complete wreckage of Daring Dream, however, could not deter his labored journey toward the prow. Despite the nearly mountainous obstacles, he climbed rapidly over the debris-strewn deck.

  The dismal wreckage of his storm-battered vessel was of little interest to him now. Far away to the west, the magnificent starry sky—clear as the wind pushed the clouds off to the east—abruptly ended in a long jagged line that here and there soared skyward at sharp angles. Land! The outline of a landmass was unmistakable as a blank in the otherwise brilliant night heavens.

  “Thar’t! Can ya see it, Fishbum?
It be’s the Outer Rings! Sure ’n it can’t be none else!” Fishbum, the young Ship’s Lookout standing beside Red Whale, felt a brief tremble of fear ripple through his body. The dim outline of an island was, indeed, unmistakable against the remains of the starry night sky. Cap’t Red Whale’s happy excitement was understandable. It was what Red Whale did not see that sent shivers down Fishbum’s spine. Dozens of small boats propelled by hundreds of paddles rising and falling in a steady, urgent rhythm, were also faintly visible to Fishbum’s bleary, peering gaze. He sensed that the boats, soundlessly bearing down on Daring Dream, were not making a friendly visit. The high speed and silence of the approach, advancing in the dim light of early dawn, indicated a desire for surprise.

  Although Fishbum feared an approaching attack, Captain “Red Whale” Gumberpott still gazed excitedly toward the horizon, seemingly oblivious to the boats. His tightly drawn face, however, belied worry that tinged his excitement. As he lumbered toward the prow, the flowing rolls of flab overhanging his belt rose and fell in rhythm with his heavy breathing. Between gasps of air, he spoke in a broken chain of frenzied commands:

  “Crinoo! The Outer Rings...Zarr!  They’re not real they said, but Lord Farseeker knew...Sharat! V’last that storming wild Ogress...thought we’d escaped it...unless we make land, we’ll be goners...not much fresh water left...V’last!”

  Reaching the prow, Red Whale suddenly lunged toward the railing. Fishbum, fearing that Red Whale meant to dive over the side, grabbed at the captain’s coat. Pulling with all his strength, Fishbum slowed, but could not stop Red Whale’s advance. The captain’s massive belly squashed across the railing. Stopping with his body pitched halfway over the railing, Red Whale’s ranting subsided into an occasional muttered oath.

  Abnormally tall and massive in girth, the giant Wolf had deep, bloodshot eyes. His strong bristly beard, dried to a scrub-brush finish, told of long weathering at sea. Leaning now, as far out over the railing as he could without falling over, he seemed to be straining, peering, frantic to see the island more clearly. “Mor’light! Mor’light! V’last the sun! Mor! Mor’light! I must see the Outer Rings! Sure ’n the Outer Rings be within my grasp!”

  Red Whale seemingly took no note of the horde of boats drawing closer. Fishbum nervously realized that his nearly blind captain perhaps did not yet see them in the still dim light. Long years spent peering at faded charts by candlelight had robbed Red Whale of much his sight. He could see well enough to make out the dark bulky profile of a landmass against the brilliant sky, but could not yet make out the small dark boats fast approaching across a still dark sea.

  “Fishbum, why are you sittin’ and waitin’ like a boot full o’ water? That’s Wrackshee boats comin’ hard at us or I’ll be fooled! Now, look lively, you! Push me over the side, then you follow! Quick like now! Be about it!” Red Whale puffed as the lumbered up over the rail, Fishbum pushing him at the rear. He paused just before plunging into the sea below. “Well, Mate, the only hope is for us to go over the side. Savin’ ourselves is the hope the others might have. If them swarming Wrackshees aim to take us, there be no hope for any of us if we stay here.”

  Into the Voi-Nil

  When Norayn “Red Whale” Gumberpott set sail six months before in search of the Outer Rings, he bore a royal commission from the Lord Lynx Farseeker. A Voyager Wolf at the Court of the Lord Lynx, Red Whale knew the legends of the Outer Rings—said to be numberless islands somewhere along the unexplored fringes of the Great Sea. Most scoffed at stories about the islands and the fabulous riches they were said to contain. Lord Farseeker, however, was not a scoffer.

  The Lord Lynx was a listener, a quester, a hoper—a lover of what might be. His eye forever looked toward the far horizon. He surrounded himself with chart makers, ship captains, astronomers, and storytellers; anyone who had something new to say about the Voi-Nil—the vast blank spaces on his charts. “Far better to listen to a storyteller with a gleam in his eye, even though he be a liar, than to a fool who has never had an idea!” he would say. There was nothing to rival the Lord Farseeker’s capacity to listen to the stories of explorers and adventurers who had ventured past the edge of the known lands.

  He delighted in the accounts of brave explorers who pushed back the edges of the Voi-Nil. Many an explorer had spent a pleasant evening in the witty and stimulating company of Lord Farseeker, awash in Devil’s Stout Cheer and surrounded by heaping plates of Blaze-Fired Pike, Nine-Chocolate Tortes, and crispy Pecan Frits. The Lynx Lord had no equal as a lively host, but his greatest reputation came as a recorder of adventurer’s tales. New discoveries, wild tales of sea monsters and fantastic lands, guesses as to what might lie deeper within the Voi-Nil—nothing was excluded from the conversation, scribes noting down every word. Many a night the lamps burned late in Lord Farseeker’s quarters as he studied recent reports and pondered new guesses about the Voi-Nil.

  When Lord Farseeker found another creature with the spirit of a quester, hoper, and lover of what might be—Ah, delight! And in Norayn Gumberpott he had long nurtured such a yearning adventurer. Born aboard ship, son of the legendary Admiral Salt Wolf Mis’treen and her husband Sir Master Long Arms Gumberpott, Norayn was true stock of his parents. Active, restless, and resolute, he was filled with an irresistible thirst for adventure. For twenty-five years he had sailed with his parents on the great trading galley, Velvet Bird, learning the ways of the sea. Sailing on some of the most celebrated voyages recorded in Lord Farseeker’s annals, he traveled all the known seas first as a rising sea-beast, then for thirty years as master of his own ship. Sailing the most difficult seas, he honed his seafaring skills and learned the ways of many lands. When Lord Farseeker was ready to send explorers deep into the Voi-Nil—seeking the Outer Rings—the burly, mountain-sized Wolf was perfectly suited to command the voyage.

  On that fateful day, which, in the end would spell the doom of Lord Farseeker’s realm—and bring many more untidy disturbances to lands and beasts far distant—no hint of future perils was present. A brilliant sun laid a carpet of dazzling diamonds across the calm sea. Favorable breezes softly ruffled the sails of the Daring Dream—the fine ship Lord Farseeker had fitted out for Norayn’s command.

  Standing beside the dock, watching Captain Gumberpott giving final orders to make the Daring Dream ready for departure, Lord Farseeker exulted. The spirit of quest shining in his captain’s face was exactly what was needed: noble, loyal, and honorable—yet with the gleam of an old sea-salt’s devil-may-care courage. The Lord Lynx knew that his captain would not turn back at the first sign of trouble.

  Indeed, if ever there was an explorer born for Lord Farseeker’s task, it was Red Whale. His success in recruiting a crew for the Daring Dream was itself proof of this. Red Whale knew that no sea-beast was anxious to sail into the Voi-Nil, what with horrific tales being all that was known of it. He had heard many such a story: “Ay’t! Only a fool would sail into the Voi-Nil. It’s naught but death for a sea-beast. Giant, hideous sea-serpents lurk there—and they’s suck the pegs right out of the hulls of ships! Then they’s suck the boots and clothes right off any poor sailor as tries to swim for his life. Then they’s slowly suck that poor sailor straight down their throats like a screaming piece of noodle—that is, if that poor, wretched soul ain’t dead of fright already! That be the Voi-Nil.”

  But Red Whale had told a different tale in the weeks before Daring Dream cast off for its voyage. Echoing through the taverns and scrogging halls his laughter crackled with the love for adventure and the thrill of new lands to be discovered. “Now hear me out you weak-gutted, flea-picking, slobber-sippers!” he laughed when sailors fearfully spoke of the Voi-Nil—of sea monsters or places where the ocean burned with fire.

  “Did you ever taste the honey-sweet Wizta Melon?” he asked. “Or scoop the luscious meat out of the tail of a roasted Glazonga Lizard? Or drink Lime Crème from an ice cup fresh made just for you? Then come along with me. Or if you like cold snake guts and watery gruel,2 stay
here. Looking around, I see lots of sailors with nothing to do—how many days of snake guts and gruel before you get a ship again? Come with me! I’m going where there’s languages you never heard. Places you never saw. Wonders you never dreamed of. And maybe riches you can’t have any other way! So, says I, come along with me!”

  And so it went in the weeks before Daring Dream set sail. Each morning, even as the damp night fog still swirled in the alleyways and docks, Red Whale was at his work. Searching the narrow streets and taverns for a crew, he swilled bubbly Spark ’n Pots with likely sea-beasts, tossed blazing hot scrog pins by the dozen to leave no doubt of his fearlessness, and cheered new recruits with coins the Lord Lynx provided for the purpose. No one could miss Red Whale as he went about his recruiting. Every sea-beast’s hangout rang with his roaring good humor and even the most seasoned sea-beast took note of his outlandish dress.

  Going about like a gilded sovereign, the massive bearded Wolf, sea-weathered and sun-bronzed, bedecked with fabulous jewelry and fine silks, used all his swagger to impress potential crew. Leaving nothing to chance, the Lord Farseeker fitted out a sturdy ship, provisioned it well, and gave Captain Gumberpott worthy means to attract a favorable crew. And it worked. Common sea-beasts and tough old salts readily signed on to sail aboard Daring Dream.

  Seeker’s Keep, the fine port of Lord Farseeker’s realm, had long been a magnet for all sorts of seafarers. “Every beast in Seeker’s Keep is either a sea-beast, or a landlubber disguised as one!”—so the saying went. Dashing swashbucklers and humble fisher-beasts, roguish rebels and fine-mannered merchants. Any beast with an interest in the sea found his way to Seeker’s Keep at one time of another. And this explosion of sea-beast flavors suited Lord Farseeker’s plans very well. Seeker’s Keep was a marvelous place to recruit a crew—with the proper means.

  Giving Red Whale a velvet bag full of heavy gold earrings, the Lord Lynx said, “Daring Dream is a ship of promise. Every beast aboard must be a seeker of good fortunes—but a ship has only hopes until good fortune is found. Hang one gold ring in the ear of every one of your crew. That will be my own good fortune going with each beast until he finds his own.”

  With such terms and tactics Red Whale attracted a worthy crew. But more than swagger, coins and rings, and promise of adventure, Captain Gumberpott knew his sea-beasts. He knew what they loved and what they feared. He knew what they wanted in a captain and in a ship. He was a sea-beast’s captain—brave, wise, smart, and fair to every crew beast.

  On the day Daring Dream set sail, the instructions given by Captain Gumberpott to his crew said it all: “Aboard this ship all beasts serve alike in both All’s-Well and danger, and all take the watch in fair wind and foul. No other port than we all reach it together. Pull our oars hard for each other, trim our sails to preserve each of us. After this, good food and drink, be careful with fire, and keep only to good rogues. But first and last be this: every ship’s beast deserves to live another day—I’ll not be waste’n my crew on fool’s chances!”

  On the 3rd day after the summer calms ended and the fall fair winds returned, Lord Farseeker gave Captain Gumberpott his commission, “Aright it is and so you are ordered,” he said, “to voyage across the Great Sea in search of the Outer Rings, and there to trade with every kind of creature you may find, provided only you keep an exact journal of your voyage, giving full and accurate account of all you learn and discover, and bring hither the tenth part of the whole of whatever value you may glean.”

  That Red Whale Gumberpott and Daring Dream would never be heard from again along that dock, nor in the taverns and scrogging halls, was then a story unknown. Now it begins.

  Ice Fall Narrows

  The last bit of land shown on Lord Farseeker’s maps before the Voi-Nil was a considerable, but barely noted, rugged island called Ice Fall Narrows. Uninhabited, except for a clan of hardy Otters who had discovered the island long ago, and stayed to make a life raising vegetables and smoking fish, it lay two month’s sailing from Seeker’s Keep.

  Two months is a long time without landfall. Fresh water gone. Provisions wormy. Tempers ragged. To sail beyond two months without seeing land, sea-beasts must be strongly determined and suffer much. With years of sailing unknown seas under his belt and particular experience sailing the edge of the Voi-Nil, Red Whale was able to calm the mounting fears of his crew. “Look here mates, we’re a ship of lucky beasts. I’ve been to Ice Fall Narrows and we won’t be long getting there now. Two more good days of favoring winds and we’ll be seeing the ice cap of Smoking Bill.” Smoking Bill, a long-silent volcano that rose up from the sea, forming the island, trailed a perpetual cloud of steam from its summit. Rising several thousand feet above the sea, a snow and ice field forever covered Smoking Bill’s upper heights.

  “Now, the first beast as sees Smoking Bill and sings out, ‘Land!’—that beast will be the first one ashore when we drop anchor,” Red Whale continued. The crew hardly slept after that. Off duty sea-beasts crowded the rails, each wanting to be the first to sight Smoking Bill.

  Sixty-three days into the voyage, Daring Dream was plowing forward under full sail when Katteo Jor’Dane sang out the long-awaited cry: “Land! Smoke three points off starboard!” “Aye, Cap’t—Smokin’ Bill just comin’ up over the horizon!” yelled Smits Howler from his lookout platform far up on the mast.

  A tumult of cheers and shouts broke out. “Huzzay! Aye’Mate! Halloo!” The ship’s musicians struck up all instruments—trumpets, tin drums, cymbals, and bagpipes. Red Whale, meanwhile, seemed uninterested in the jubilant celebration. Pulling a small spyglass from his coat pocket, he put it to his eye and scanned the horizon. For some minutes he continued to gaze through his telescope, moving it back and forth as he inspected various points on the horizon.

  At last, satisfied that the identification of the long-anticipated island was correct, Captain Gumberpott lowered the spyglass. Slipping it back in his pocket, he turned to Fishbum. Shouting to be heard above the blaring, honking, clanging and yelling, Red Whale yelled in Fishbum’s ear: “Get a flash gourd from the explosives case and bring it up here. Be quick about it.”

  Doing as he was told, Fishbum ran off and soon returned carrying one of the small gourds packed with highly-explosive grain dust. He handed it to Red Whale who, with a hearty chuckle, lit the fuse and watched it burn, smoking in his hand for several seconds. Then he drew back his arm and tossed the flash gourd with all his strength far out over the water. Fishbum and Red Whale watched the smoking fuse trace a long curving arc across the sky.

  KA-BOOM! The deafening explosion set up a huge geyser of water that sprayed back across the deck. The crew’s celebration stopped instantly, all eyes turned to Red Whale. “There,” the captain began, “thank you for accepting my pleasant little invitation to pay attention! Listen well! Stop acting like landlubber shopkeepers who’ve drunk too much coffee! We’ve got serious business ahead! That will be all the partying for now. We’re not safe to the harbor yet. We have some real sweating to do—all paws to your oar posts! The current will tear us to pieces if we’re not about our wits!”

  The crew scattered quickly to their tasks. Pulling in the sails and securing them, opening the oar ports, and extending the long oars, they readied the ship to move under its own power. As the crew did their work, Red Whale explained the situation to Fishbum. “The first sight of Smokin’ Bill means we’re about to be in the grip of the Keel-Ripper. The Keel-Ripper is a tremendous, powerful current that runs on this side of Ice Fall Narrows. It runs like a mad beast right past the island. We can’t fight it. Once the Keel-Ripper takes us, we only choose which way it carries us. She’ll be hurling us through a string of rocks and reefs if we don’t have our wits with us! Here, mate, take the glass and have a look.”

  Red Whale handed Fishbum his spyglass. The Lynx surveyed the sea that lay ahead. Frothing ripples clearly showed where the water surged at high speed across long stretches of rocky reefs. Fishbum did not need much imagination to
picture the extreme danger they were facing.

  “Now, we won’t be goin’ that way, mate. The reef’s sure destruction for us. Tryin’ to weave through the line of reefs—why, the Keel-Ripper’ll just skip us like a stone across the rocks...septin’ Daring Dream won’t skip none too good. We’d be torn to pieces in a wink.”

  He paused for a moment, then clapped Fishbum on the shoulder and continued in a jovial tone. “But, we have a choice, mate. We can’t trust the winds, but rowin’ we have a chance of controlling the way the current carries us. With strong backs to the oars and a tiny bit of good luck, the Keel-Ripper’ll be throw’n us right through the Narrows to safe harbor. Just before the line of reefs begins, the current splits—one stream goin’ through the reefs, and the other pushing through the Narrows. Ride it through the Narrows and we hit the safe, deep bay on the other side. There’s a fine snug harbor there.” Having piloted through the Narrows before, Red Whale knew that working with the powerful tide was both highly dangerous and the only hope of safety. Using oars to keep the ship at the center of the surging current and steering with great care, the Keel-Ripper would push the ship safely through the Narrows to the other side of the island.

  The captain had hardly finished speaking, when the ship lurched as if a mighty beast had grabbed it. “Pull on the oars—Now!” Red Whale yelled as the ship lurched, broadsided by the powerful current. “Row lively now, mates! We’ll be caught on the reefs if we don’t work it well! Row as if all and forever depended on it. Hard to the oars! Hard as ya can!”

  Approaching the line of reefs, the frenzied crew below deck pulled at the oars. Captain Gumberpott, turning the wheel slightly, steered the ship down the narrow passage separating the line of reefs from the rugged coastline studded with rocks. Everywhere, sharp rocks and precipitous cliffs promised to dash a poorly piloted ship to pieces.

  At the south end, the island was bisected by a narrow sea passage—the Ice Fall Narrows which gave the island its name. Some long ago earthquake had ripped the island in two. Only a narrow passage existed, barely twice the width of Daring Dream in a few places, but sufficient to pass safely with a wise pilot at the wheel. “Fight the Keel-Ripper and she will kill you,” Red Whale explained to Fishbum. “But ride with her and she will pull you through the Narrows—but even none of us can stop the Ice Fall if that be our fate!”

  As Daring Dream slipped into the Narrows, sheer cliffs of rock, immensely high, could be seen rising ahead on both sides. Long runs of glacier ice could be seen, running up the side of Smoking Bill’s peak.

  “Ayet, mates! Take a good look at the sky—that’ll be the last you see of it and Smokin’ Bill until we pop out the other side of the Narrows. We’ll be seein’ nothin’ but rocks, water, and fog for now.”

   As the ship drew further and further into the Narrows, Red Whale commanded that all non-essential crew go below deck and close every possible hatch. “We’ll be crossing near the Ice Fall soon, and best for beasts to be below. Anyone on deck will be soaked with freezing water.” Halfway through the Narrows, a river flowing down off of Smoking Bill poured over the sheer, jagged, treeless cliff. The powerful fall of the river over time had eroded the far side of the Narrows, giving a wider passage for Daring Dream. Hugging the far wall of the Narrows, a ship could avoid the main force of the river falling into the sea-passage. But being fed by glaciers on the flanks of Smoking Bill, chunks of ice often were also carried over the falls. Sometimes the chunks were huge—the size of a rowboat or sometimes larger. When this “Ice Fall” occurred, it could easily destroy a ship. There was no telling what might be falling at any particular time.

  Captain Gumberpott did not move or hesitate. “Fishbum,” he ordered, “get the moggets on. Here we go!” Fishbum and the few other crew-beasts left on deck quickly pulled on their moggets—waterproof lizard skin coats. Red Whale slightly turned the wheel to alter the course, pulling Daring Dream as wide as possible from the falling water. Below decks, two crew-beasts labored at every oar—twenty on each side of Daring Dream—to gently move the ship with the current. And with Captain Gumberpott’s experienced paw on the wheel, Daring Dream edged its way through a hideous graveyard of ships. The ghostly remains of smashed ships lay scattered around the waterfall, the ghastly ribs of keels poking up like great dead monsters.

  Where the warm sea current mingled with the icy water coming off the mountain, thick fogs settled over the Narrows. Gloomy, swirling fog seemed to merge seamlessly with the gray water of the Narrows. Occasionally, a shaft of sunlight, pierced through a breech in the steep canyon walls and briefly lightened the lead-gray mist. But for the most part, Red Whale could barely see from one end of the ship to the other. Fishbum and several other sea-beasts, stationed at points along the ship’s railing on all sides, peered into the fog, calling out warnings to guide Red Whale at the wheel: “Rocks to port—ten degrees starboard!”

  As Daring Dream gradually worked her way deeper and deeper into the Narrows, the approach to the Ice Fall brought the booming echoes of huge chunks of ice falling into the water. Countless chunks of ice, some as large as a whale, others small as watermelon, now bobbed everywhere around the ship. The eerie sound of falling ice tested every nerve and often sent everyone by Red Whale scurrying for cover. SPLING! A box-sized piece of ice bounced off the side of Daring Dream, smashing two sets of oars. CRASH-SPLOOSH! A larger chunk broke off the bowsprit. CLINK-SPLINK-SPLING! A shower of chunks splattered the deck, one missing Red Whale only by inches. But the shower of ice chunks was even worse closer to the waterfall—WHA-SPLOOSH! A massive chunk sent up a geyser. Spray doused the Daring Dream’s deck.

  “Crinoo! Hard on the oars, mates!” Red Whale yelled. “Pull for all you’re worth! Another twenty strokes and we’ll be clear of the fallin’ ice! Pull! Pull! Pull!”

  WHA-SPLOOSH! Below decks the whole crew threw its muscles to the oars. Puffing and wheezing as they pulled, half suffocated in the stale air of beasts sweating and blowing, even the most seasoned felt sick as the ship tossed helter-skelter. Squalid air, seasickness, and fear all blended together as every beast frantically pulled to keep the ship out of the main path of the falling ice.

  Frothing seawater splashed in through the long tear in the hull where the oar ports had been destroyed. Injured oar-beasts sloshed and stumbled toward the stairway to the upper deck calling for Banjo Saw, the ship’s doctor. Heeding the call of necessity, several beasts abandoned their oars and began working the manual pumps. Tense minutes passed. The creaking and groaning of the ship’s timbers had never seemed so fearsome.

  The sound of puffing and gasping oar-beasts and of oars rattling feverishly in their ports gradually overpowered the fading thunder of the waterfall and falling ice. After another several minutes of frantic rowing and pumping, a pleasant melody began to drown out the fading boom of falling ice—the rolling, soft crash of waves on a sandy beach. Narrows End Bay!

  Narrows End Bay, opening wide on the far side of the island, offered Daring Dream a welcoming calm. Snug and deep, the harbor was big enough for a hundred ships, but was hardly ever visited. Few sea-beasts knew it as more than a speck on their charts, and fewer still wished to voyage to the very edge of the Voi-Nil.

  For a crew that has been imprisoned on ship for 63 days, an empty harbor is still a harbor. As soon as Daring Dream dropped anchor, Nail-n-Peg Saloo, the ship’s carpenter took three beasts over the side to repair the gash in the hull. It would be two day’s tidy work to close the hole, and three more days to replace the bowsprit. Add on the needs of hauling fresh water and provisions, and the crew would be at least a week at the Narrows End Bay.

  Katteo Jor’Dane, having been the first to sight land, rode happily in the prow of the first longboat sent ashore. Other longboats followed, crowded with red-faced Otters from the plains of Atalyety; and tall, proud-eyed Hares from the jungles of Heepkatadoo; and Lisstecars—richly bearded Coyotes loaded down with daggers of every description. And, as with any crew, there were the bewilde
red, young crew-beasts staring at everything around them, as if they had suddenly discovered astonishment. Soon all the crew, except the feverishly working repair team, was ashore.

  Striking the beach in the first longboat, Captain Gumberpott greeted his old friend, Winja Selamí, the craggy old chief of the small Knot of Otters settled on Narrows End Bay. “Winja, you old weather!” Red Whale greeted his friend. “How blows the Fair Temps for you?”

  “Since the third day last,” Winja replied, “the Fair Temps3 are steady and mild. That means likely a fair blow to the west, but a Scowling Mally4 brewing to the south. Which way are you bound?”

  “Why, we be bound for a merry mug and pot of stew, of course!” Red Whale laughed. “A few sips of Sea Brew would be a mighty fine thing just now.”

  “Ay’t—a welcoming mug o’ cheer and good vittles are, indeed, the sea-beasts best harbor!” Winja chuckled. “Come on and join us for a pint o’ Sea Brew and some vittles to shake up your gut a bit. I’m just off to join the rest of the Knot over at Flummo O’Marrell’s place. There’s a feast tonight for a young beast washed up on the shore a few weeks ago—cast overboard, far off-shore, by a Rummer Boar passing by. You know the Rummers—a fiercesome cruel batch of freebooters. As a wee Wolf, Bem was stolen from her bed one night—taken by Wrackshees, then sold to Rummers to replace deserters in their crew. She fell into life on the ship and became the Pilot. Gradually, however, the horror of the Rumming raids turned her heart against that life. She tried to mount a mutiny and take over the ship, but failed. The Rummer Boar—a particularly bad fellow, Sabre Tusk d’Newolf—threw her into the freezing water. He thought that was the end of Bem. And nearly was. When she washed up in the Bay, we didn’t know if she’d pull through at first—nearly drowned, cold to the point of being blue, badly cut and bruised, half-raving mad with fever. But with kindly attention she gradually came to herself and healed. So come on along—today we celebrate her recovery. All of us are meeting at Flummo’s to prepare for the celebration. You must join us.”

  Captain Gumberpott and his crew followed their host as he plunged off along a trail leading back through the rocks, sand dunes, and trees that ringed the wide sandy beach. Lazy curls of smoke drifted up to the sky a short distance off among the rocks. Sounds of music, laughter, and uproarious singing drifted faintly over the dunes.

  The trail gradually rose away from the beach as it meandered through the dunes. A short distance back from the beach, a wide flat area lay like a shallow bowl, surrounded by the rocky hills that rose away from the beach. The expanse of smooth, hard-packed sand was unbroken except for a few sturdy, well-made log buildings and several large trees, one of which had a large wooden barrel suspended from one of its limbs.

  Perhaps two-dozen Otters were working and rushing here and there. Shouts and laughter mingled with the banging of pots and sizzling of cook fires. Fresh shrimp crackled and popped as they were tossed into boiling oil and the savory odor of baking tarts filled the air. A few Otters gave lively spirit to the workers and added to the festive atmosphere as they went about playing bells, drums, and pipes.

  Tired and famished after weeks at sea, the crew of Daring Dream found new life in the sights and smells. Great pans of warm water, perfumed with sandrose petals, thyme, lavender, or orange peels, were provided for the sea-beasts to wash and refresh themselves.  All around them Otters were bustling and scurrying with baskets, kettles, and pots. Long tables were being placed and covered with large tablecloths made from sail-canvas. Cook fires burned merrily here and there. Every beast cheerfully worked at preparing the coming feast.

  Wiggen’n Bob, Master of the Cookery, seemed to be everywhere, giving endless orders to the cooks with a gruff good humor:

  “Whip the Honeysong Cream faster or I’ll knock you with the ladle! It’ll never stand up like a sail on the Ship Cake if you leave it limp and loose like that!

  “RARRRAH! There must be more pickled snails than that, unless that rascal Alameg has been into the brine pot again! How am I to feed you all, if I’m surrounded by sneaks picking at my stores?

  “One hundred and eighty-four for feast, Miss Pottentam, we’ll be needing another dozen sacks of turnips, carrots, and yams for the stew. Send the Pickins Twins on up to the storage cave with the wagon.” And so on and so on it went all day for Wiggen’n Bob.

  The Knot of Otters was nothing if not hospitable and the newcomers had barely appeared before all work stopped briefly and the Otters gathered around the visitors, talking and asking questions excitedly. The Knot at Narrows End Bay was populated entirely by Otters, with the exception of a single, lone Coyote who was abandoned by a Rummer ship some years before because of his advancing age. Half-hidden under a large, floppy hat—ringed all around with strings of shark teeth and shells—and a heavy blanket worn as a cloak, the Coyote jabbered loudly enough to be heard everywhere. Poking and waving with an old, well-used harpoon, its wooden handle carved all over with curious names, the elderly Coyote looked like many a seasoned sea-beast. Brown and burly, hair wizened and weathered from salt air and sun, the Coyote had obviously sailed on many a voyage. Moving about rapidly, still agile and active, stopping a moment with each visiting sea-beast, he continually asked the same sorts of questions:

   “Where are you bound? What you got for tradin’? Got any fine goods you’d trade for a beauty of a shark’s tooth or a piece of dragon’s tail? Got need of a story-teller aboard your ship?”

  Some of the common sea-beasts traded brass buttons or a harmonica or the words to an unknown song to the old Coyote for beautiful, dangerous-looking shark teeth. Others asked him about the dragon tail, showing by their bemused looks that they did not really believe such creatures existed.

  “Naw, now, you sun-burned old Coyote, don’t you be swilling your lies at me,” Fishbum growled at the old sea-beast. “Dragons live only in the tongues of cheeky old fibbers, like yourself. You’ve been living in the salt and sun so long, your brain-riggings are rotted. Now get on with bothering the others and leave me to my Brew!”

  Taking Fishbum’s response as a bit of an insult, the old Coyote—BorMane by name—demanded harshly, “Do you now! Do you now! Rotten are your own brain-riggings, and you’re nothing but spit-in-the-wind for courtesy either!” Flinging off his floppy hat, BorMane revealed a long, jagged scar that ran all the way from one ear to the other across the back of his head. The scar was so deadly-looking and striking that it took Fishbum’s breath away, and diverted his attention from the curious notches in the Coyote’s ears.

  “Now, do you know how I came by that scar—do you?” BorMane scowled. “Well, I’ll tell you...” Sticking his harpoon under Fishbum’s nose, the old sea-beast pointed to one of the carvings on it. “That be the name of the ship I was serving on—the Crust of Luck—when we was broken to bits by a dragon! That scar is the carving the creature made on my skull with his teeth—so don’t you be telling me about the fraying of my brain-riggings. I know perfectly well what I’m about!”

  Fishbum offered no more reply, simply gaping back at the terrible scar as he moved away from BorMane. Red Whale, however, hearing the exchange, was instantly at the side of the elderly Coyote.

  “Dragons, you say, old mate?” Red Whale began. “So far as I’ve heard, the only ships as mention them have been sailing the Voi-Nil. You’ve sailed those perilous seas, you say?”

  “Do you know anyone but me as claims to have sailed those seas?” the Coyote replied with a twinkle in his eye. “You think perhaps I carved my own skull or that I bought these bits of dragon tail from a shop?” BorMane fell silent for a moment, fingering the shark’s teeth hanging from his hat. “All I would be wondering if I was you, Cap’t, is how all these shark’s teeth—all of them bigger than you’ve ever seen in your life—got to be hanging on my hat. It might have something to do with this here harpoon of mine. That’s all I’d be wondering if I was you, Cap’t.”

  “Crinoo!” Red Whale muttered sharply. “I’ll be the one saying wh
at I ought to be wondering, old salt! What I’ll be wondering is if you would explain yourself to me—tell me what you know of the Voi-Nil—if we have time to talk around my table? You would answer my questions then, I think?”

  “You mean, sir, that you would be thinking of having me ship out with you, if I tell you?” BorMane asked. “You’ll have to want me, as well as want my story, if I’m to tell you.”

  A gleam of happiness leaped in Captain Gumberpott’s eyes. “Shake on it!” he cried. “Aye, you old sea-bag. Daring Dream has a berth for a story-teller! She’s bound into the Voi-Nil in search of the Outer Rings and we’ve no maps but stories—we’ll be needing the best stories we can get. You’re aboard, Mr. BorMane!”

  Captain Gumberpott, taking a long, loud slurp of his Sea Brew, continued, leaning nearer to his new crew member. “Old salt, Daring Dream is not a ship for liars. We’ll treasure your stories, even if there’s mistakes or things you forget—but, mark my words, a conscious lie that puts my crew in peril, and you’ll fight the sharks alone.”

  “I come aboard as I have always served a ship,” BorMane replied evenly. “Never mind about lies. I tell you what I know and have seen...that is all. Take it or leave it. If you have harpooned more than a thousand sharks and lived to sell their teeth to fools as buy such rubbish—then, one wonders if a beast such as myself might know a thing or two without needing the kind advice of yourself. If you might like to hear where I run my harpoon through those monster-big sharks or cut the tail off a dragon, then I’d be pleased to sail with you. Take my word for it, however—I can judge my truth-telling without help from you.”

  Red Whale chuckled and slapped the old Coyote on the back affectionately. “Beginning with sunset tomorrow, you’ll be expected at my table aboard Daring Dream each night for the ship’s council as makes the plans for the voyage. It’s my trust to you—and my hope for good success for both of us.”

  Such a development left BorMane uncharacteristically quiet as he savored his joy in finding a ship that would once more take him to sea. His happy reflections, however, were quickly disrupted as two young Otters, Foggtutt and Rowl, bowled past him, dropping the buckets they were carrying; scattering potatoes around Bormane’s feet.  Howling with delight, the rowdy little Otters tackled Fishbum—who was still standing nearby—around the knees, knocking him to the ground.

   “Sail me! Sail me! Come on, sail me!” the young beasts yelled as they climbed on Fishbum’s back urging him to give them a ride. Fishbum gamely tossed the two stubby Otters on his back and began to run wildly, swaying and weaving as if he were a ship being tossed by a storm.

  “And the hurricane roared for twenty days!” Fishbum screeched. “The good ship Otter Death was battered by FIFTY FOOT WAVES—and every sea-beast aboard was sure it was the end!” Up and down Fishbum bobbed, going around and around in wild circles. “And every beast was sick and feeling green around the gills,” he screeched, sounding like some horrific monster of the deep. “The sails were in shreds, the masts cracked and falling to pieces—and soon only the two brave Otter Mates were left—and THEY WENT DOWN WITH THE SHIP!” Fishbum finished, as he collapsed on the ground panting for breath.

  Foggtutt and Rowl squealed with glee and tumbled off as Fishbum fell. But hardly an instant had passed and they were up again, pulling on Fishbum to play some more. But he was not in a mood to play the “good ship Fishbum” again, although he did have in mind further amusement for the young Otters.

  “Hey-ho, Captain! Seeking your permission to take these wee bits of rascal and throw them to the sharks!” he yelled.

  “Permission granted,” Red Whale answered, laughing heartily.

  Grabbing the young Otters, Fishbum called on Katteo Jor’Dane to go off to bring one of the large sail-canvas tablecloths. As she ran off to get the canvas cloth, Fishbum, holding Foggtutt and Rowl securely, presented them to Captain Gumberpott with mock solemnity.

  “Let it be known to all the Powers of the Sea and all Good Sea-Beasts that sail the Far Points of the Compass, that these here Bits o’ Rascal have been tried and found guilty of worrying and annoying Master Fishbum, Sea-King of This Sand Where I Stand! Be it so ordered, therefore, that these wee Otters be thrown to the sharks!”

  Returning with the large canvas tablecloth, Fishbum, Katteo, and several other members of the Daring Dream crew, placed first, Foggtutt, then Rowl, on the blanket and tossed them high in the air. With peals of laughter from the rough-mannered, but playful sea-beasts, and squeals of delighted terror from the Otters, Foggtutt and Rowl took turns going up and down in the air until they had worn out a goodly number of the Daring Dream crew. At last, all were weary of the game and even Foggtutt and Rowl were content to go on with the jobs they had been doing to help prepare for the feast.

  Smiling at the sea-beasts who had shown such playful kindness to the little Otters, Winja said, “Come on, you salty slobber-cheekers, you’ve earned the first bops of the fresh batch of Flummo O’Marrell’s Sea Brew. It was made especially for today’s celebration and such good-hearted visitors deserve the honor of swilling the first bop.”

  Seeing the uncertain looks cast in his direction in response to his invitation, Winja winked at Red Whale. Walking over to where the barrel was hanging from a tree branch and a similar barrel sat on the ground beside the tree, he continued, “Swill a bit of Flummo’s Sea Brew and you’ll think only one of two things. He’s either a demon or a magician—depending on how your stomach takes it. In more than thirty summers here at Narrows End Bay, I’ve seen beasts take it both ways—some say it’s like licking muddy water off the bottom of a boot and others swear it’s the Kick o’ Life. Speaking for myself, I lean toward the latter opinion.”

  The old Otter reached into the barrel on the ground and pulled out a deeply-rounded clam shell. He held the cup to the tap, gave it a turn, and waited. After several moments, a thick ribbon of slippery black liquid dripped out of the tap and flowed into the bop Winja held, stretching out in a long slithery strand as it slowly filled the clamshell cup. Dark as molasses, glistening strands of Sea Brew ran in a slow stream from a large cask hanging from a timber in front of a small thatched hut.

  When the dark liquid had filled the bop, Winja lifted it to his nose and sniffed it as if in ecstasy. Then he tilted the clamshell cup, sucking the Sea Brew out of the bop with prolonged, loud slurps. “Ah...Sea Brew...sweet ’n peppery, hot ’n minty, with just a hint of slap-you-in-the-face...it’s the Kick o’ Life...”

  Almost as if on cue, another Otter, stout as the barrel of Sea Brew itself, waddled out of the nearby building. His plump, friendly face, rounded to a circle by bulging cheeks, was framed by bushy sideburns. A large, puffy nose pushed out prominently over a well-greased handlebar moustache.

  Clapping Winja on the back, the Otter boomed, “Hally, Winja! Do they want the Brew?”

  “Every good and brave beast wants some!” Winja yelled back in reply. “Looks to be a goodly troop of sail-ridin’ salts. I speak in particular of this big red-eyed Wolf with the swagger and guff of a captain—a likely fellow we’ve seen before in these parts. The rest look tolerable honest and more bold than bluster. Sure enough they will want the Brew.”

  “Flummo O’Marrell at your service,” the Otter said, sweeping his rough apron to the side as he bent his knee before Captain Gumberpott. “Drink up and welcome, my salty breeze-robbers! My eye-watering, sinus-cleansing, gut-wolloping elixir is freshly brewed—clears the head, steadies the heart, and soothes the nerves; it’s the Kick o’ Life!”

  Small, twinkling eyes and a laughing smile added to the warm friendliness of the Otter’s greeting. Despite the friendly welcome, however, some of the sea-beasts still looked dubious about the clamshell cups of dark, slimy-looking Sea Brew that Winja was cheerfully filling and passing around.

  “Look how they stare, Winja! Like these brave beasts never took a bit of drink. Well then, let’s have another go in the proper do o’ things.” With great fanfare, Flummo let out a
curious wheezing cough, as if clearing a great boulder from his throat, and said, “You’re kindly invited to comfort your belly with some Pop-Fritter Shrimp, Twice-baked Bay Pear Soup, and Cove Biscuits, while you sip a delicate cup of Sea Brew. Come and welcome to the Feast n’ Fiddle to celebrate young Bem Madsoor’s return to health.”

  “You see, Captain,” Winja added, “I’ve seen it go both ways. Why, there’s some dainty wallflower beasts, that’s never raised a sail, as would rather drink water. That’s the ones that call Sea Brew the ‘elixir of gut-rot and staggers,’” he laughed. “But for fine sea-beasts such as yourselves—that’s braved the Ice Fall Narrows and think nothing of cussing a hurricane to its face—why, for you, Flummo’s Brew is made to order.”

  As Winja said this, three more Otters came out of Flummo’s house, carrying baskets of food and singing with happy gusto:

  So ye made the sea and demons flee

  You dock-fleeing, sea-woozy shalleets?5

  Halloo-halloo! Hallee!

  You furled up the wind and gave it flight

  With twenty-nine strokes of a dagger’s bite?

  Halloo-halloo! Hallee!

  And you heaved the storms in and anchored them down,

  With a chain of oaths they strangled and drown’d?

  With a Fe-Hallee-Halloo!

  Then a favoring Temp and a blessed fair sail

  Brings ye here—one port closer to hell!

  Halloo-halloo! Hallee!

  Well sang, we say! Welcome, be ye!

  With a Fe-Halloo-Hallee!

  Finishing their song, one of the Otters laid out wooden plates on the tables while another offered bops of Sea Brew to Red Whale’s crew. As the crew took their first swigs of Sea Brew, friendly arguments broke out about whether the sweet, knife-sharp taste of the Brew outweighed its intensely strong odor of fish. In the end, however, after two months at sea, the choice between Sea Brew and water was easy for a sea-beast, and soon all were enjoying Flummo’s creation.

  “Friends, your coming adds happiness to our celebration,” Winja called out to the visiting sea-beasts as they scattered to join in making the preparations. “We did not expect to have such fine guests at our Feast n’ Fiddle. By the good winds of the Powers of the Sea, however, the bounty of our gardens and the goodly supply of fresh shrimp we have on ice will come to good use. We’ll cook as much as we need and you’ll help us plant and fish for more while you visit us.”

  With a loud ‘Hallee’ the happy beasts tore into the work of readying the delicious spread. Several of the crew took tentative sips of the Sea Brew as they worked. Galley beasts from Daring Dream joined the Otters tending the cooking fires and the preparations proceeded with joking good humor.

  As the Daring Dream crew fell to work, Red Whale and Winja discussed the repairs needed by the ship and other arrangements for the visit. Slurping Sea Brew with gusto, Red Whale and the Otter chief made plans to salvage materials from the numerous wrecks scattered along the coast.

  Talk of the wrecks and Daring Dream’s own narrow escape, led Red Whale to ask, “Where’s the guest of honor, Winja—this Bem Madsoor?”

  “Ah, and who knows about that sprite of hell?” Winja chuckled. “She’s set off to the Long-Off Pinnacle to watch for ships and chanting her Hoping Songs to the Powers of the Sea. She wants to leave Narrows End Bay as soon as she can. She’s been off to the Pinnacle every day and hardly stops chanting even to take a breath or put some timber in her belly. Bem’s one to put skip in the heart of even the bravest beast—nay, she makes every brave beast you ever knew look like weak-kneed cowards by comparison. The places she’s sailed and the dangers she’s battled would leave me sleepless the rest of my life! Those of us in our little settlement fish and plant our vegetables in happy peace and quiet. We greet a few ships stopping by—such as yourself—but mostly we live a quiet life. Bem Madsoor  is very different. Don’t assume that all of us at Narrows End Bay are alike.” Winja paused for a moment. He pointed off toward the jagged hills rising sharply away toward the interior of the island.

  “The point of rock you see poking up like a crooked finger is called Long-Off Pinnacle—you can see thirty miles to sea from there. Bem’s up there watching for the ship that will take her home. She’s set on getting back to Port Newolf—that’s in the Outer Rings, some days sailing from here—raising a crew, and hunting down Sabre Tusk d’Newolf. She’s sworn to destroy the Rummers.”

  Raising his eyebrows for emphasis, Winja leaned toward Red Whale and spoke with a tone of mixed admiration and fear. “Oh, she’ll be here soon I’ll wager. From Long-Off Pinnacle Bem’s seen your ship in the harbor for sure and she’ll be wasting no time to get back here.”

  Winja rubbed his chin and closed his eyes briefly, as if considering what to say next. Then he continued, “I warn you, friend, don’t fret if Bem seems a bit uncertain of mind, loose with her weapons, or rude in amusements. She may step on your feet and knock you down, as if you aren’t even there. You might feel a throwing lance wisk your hat right off your head and stick it to a tree. She might empty her bop of Sea Brew right over your head and laugh as it runs down your face. Be warned. These are Bem’s manners and customs. Sailing with Rummers in the trallé trade has taught her that she can brook no one stronger or more fierce then herself. She will not tolerate a challenge or a bad word against her—or, thankfully, her friends. She knows that her survival in what she plans depends on her complete fearlessness. Be warned. She is more good than bad, and a more generous and big-hearted beast you will never find. In her, ‘bad’ does not mean evil. I call her ‘bad’ as all beasts who dare to challenge her will call her ‘bad’—a more strong and forceful, determined and dangerous beast does not exist. Be warned. She may be young, friendly enough, and mean you no harm if you accept her ways. But be warned.” Ending his strange introduction to what was to come, Winja took a long slurp of Sea Brew and looked toward the Long-Off Pinnacle.

  Bem Madsoor Introduces Herself

  As shadows lengthened in the early evening, a long day of fun and feasting was still going strong at Narrows End Bay. Captain “Red Whale” Gumberpott swung slowly back and forth in a hammock, his legs sprawling over the edges. Thanks to the feasting, his substantial stomach took on truly gigantic proportions as the curve of the hammock pushed it up before his eyes. A bop of Sea Brew rested on Red Whale’s stomach and with only minor effort, the good captain could tip the bop enough to send a small dribble of the Brew into his mouth. Such small movements and sips were about all he could manage. The feasting had taken its toll.

  Relaxed and gut-stuffed to the limit, Red Whale contentedly watched some of the more energetic crew of the Daring Dream preparing to compete against some of the Narrows End Bay locals in a Cheat-Break contest. Red Whale remembered the first time he’d seen Cheat-Break played. He’d been a young mate on that first stop at Narrows End Bay so many years ago. “Arr’t it a bit o’ wonder the way time sails by?” he mused, recalling himself in those days. “I was a hunder’d pounds less in the gut then,” he chuckled, “and it’s a blessin’ I’m too heavy to be any use to our team now...Needs a young beast sharp o’ mouth and weak o’ brain—more grit than wit—Aye, getting’ old and heavy has its merits,” he smiled, sipping his Brew.

  But Red Whale quickly turned serious as he noticed Katteo Jor’Dane tying a strip of green cloth around her arm. “Nay, Katteo!” he yelled, without moving from his comfortable hammock.  “It’s bein’ a game better for ya to watch than to play. We can’t afford ya gittin’ all smashed up!” Red Whale knew the dangers of Cheat-Break and he was not willing to have his best crew-beasts risk serious injury. “Arr—the same goes for you Piggerton! Off to the sidelines with ya!” If a few of his bilge-brained crew wanted to take their chances in a dangerous game, he could replace them with locals if need be. But he’d not allow his most skilled and vital crew to play the fool with their limbs.

  A feast day at Narrows End Bay always ended with Cheat-Break races. As the name i
mplied, Cheat-Break was a rough local game that left cheaters with all manner of broken bones. Teams of ‘Heavers’—twelve to a team—carried longboats above their heads from one end of a marked course to the other.

  As the game began, the longboats were empty. But when a longboat crossed a line at one end of the course, the boat was lowered quickly to the ground and one of the Heavers clambered aboard. The remaining Heavers hoisted the boat up again and hurried off toward the other end of the course. After crossing a similar line at that end, the process was repeated. As more and more rounds were completed, and more and more beasts rode in the boats, the heavier the boats became. The team that carried its longboat the longest distance before it could no longer be lifted was the winner.

  A red pennant flapped from the prow of one longboat and a green pennant hung from the opposing one. The contest was defined by the curious way the teams were divided. Equal numbers of Red and Green Heavers carried each longboat. All sorts of trickery could be tried to help one’s own team, save only causing the boat to fall. A falling longboat—especially one filled with Heaver beasts—could badly injure many an unlucky beast. Hence, Cheat-Break was a fairly apt name for the rough old sport.

  In the early going, the teams moved with some speed. Moving in spurts and spiraling bursts, the boats swayed and dipped in erratic curves. Opposing Heavers struggled to advance their own team’s boat, or delay the opposing one. The basic goal of Heavers carrying the opposing team’s longboat was to make the journey from one end of the course to the other exhausting. The more times a longboat circled aimlessly due to the evenly-matched struggles of opposing Heavers, the more likely that longboat would lose the game. On the other hand, the strategy of Heavers loyal to the longboat they carried was to keep their biggest and strongest teammates as rested as possible in the early going.

  The boats weaved down the course amidst a barrage of jabbering and cursing from the Heavers: “YAR! YA BILGE-DRINKIN’ SLIME HOG! KEEPIN’ YER ELBOW TO OUT’ER ME EYES! ER I’LL BITT’IN IT UP!”

  “ARRR! YA WORTHLESS SAND-HEAD—YER BE BITIN’ ME AND I’LL POUND YER TEETH INTA YER GUT!”

  The yammering of the Heavers mingled with the cheers and taunts of the crowd.

  “GLORY ON, RED! GLORY ON! GREEN’S NOTHIN’ BUT SAIL—NOT A BIT O’ WIND! GLORY ON, YA GREEN BOAT-SNATCHERS!”

  “AH, SHUT YER GAP! RED PLAYS LIKE FISH TRYIN’ TO WALK. STEP LIVELY, GREEN!”

  Puffing and hollering, the Heavers gradually moved the wildly spinning longboats down the course. Each team fought to hold its own in the rugged contest as the boats went up and down, around and around, in the dizzying race.

  Red Whale roared with laughter as he watched the comic spectacle. Running his arm across his eyes to wipe away the tears of laughter that had gathered there, he glanced out toward the bay. Turning suddenly ashen, the smile faded from his face. A strange figure was climbing the rigging of the Daring Dream! No beast had been left aboard to take care of the ship. Every member of the crew was ashore! The beast in the riggings was unfurling the sails. The ship was being stolen!

  “STATIONS! TO STATIONS! STATIONS! STATIONS! TO THE SHIP! THE SHIP IS BEING STOLEN! IT’S A SNEAK ATTACK!” Red Whale roared, flying into action.

  One look toward the ship told everyone Captain Gumberpott was right. Instantly, the Heavers set the longboats down where they were. The Cheat-Break contest was forgotten. Daring Dream crew-beasts scrambled to launch the longboats. Captain Gumberpott was already pulling on the oars as BorMane, Fishbum, and Katteo Jor’Dane splashed through the shallows and clambered into the boat. The rest of the Daring Dream crew ran to the boats, jumping aboard in tangled masses of arms and legs as the longboats rapidly pulled away from the beach. Diving and leaping through waist-deep water the last members of the crew caught the final departing longboat and pulled themselves aboard.

  Pulling hard on the oars, the crew-beasts grunted and groaned as the oars dipped in the waves. The iron-armed sea-beasts had never rowed more urgently. With each jangle of the oars in the oarlocks, the heavy longboats seemed to take flight, leaping across the next wave.

  But as the longboats drew closer to the Daring Dream, a babble of surprised muttering rose from the crew.

  “Nay-O, n’ what’s the attack? I’d see nar’t more than a single beast on the Dream!”

  “Tha’rs nar’t but a wee little cockboat tied up there! Don’t look to be a warrin’ ship!”

  “There’s narry but a Sea Wolf up there in the riggin’—just a one!”

  “Arr! What’s ta meanin’ of all this? Be it a lone Wolf Rummer?”

  Reaching the ship first, Captain Gumberpott clambered up the ladder. Just as he stepped onto the deck, the Sea Wolf who had been unfurling the sails, swung easily down to the deck on a rope. Dressed in the rough style of one a long away from home, the Wolf wore a badly worn, but neatly mended, crimson waistcoat and pants, with plain sea cotton shirt, and lizard-skin boots. A long red feather poked jauntily from the side of the snug cap she wore tightly pulled on her head. A reddish bronze chain hung around the Wolf’s thick neck, with an unusual hooked chunk of blood-red glass attached to it. A short sword was in a scabbard on her belt, and a rolled up net hung from a sling across her back. Streaks of white hair scattered among the Wolf’s otherwise long dark red-brown mane marked her as a “well weathered old varmit,” as Winja had described Bem Madsoor  on another occasion.

  For indeed it was none other than Bem Madsoor, herself. Burned by the sun to the color of mahogany, the swarthy Wolf’s long, thin face mimicked her rangy height. Standing at least a foot taller than those gathered around, she could look down on everyone except Red Whale. Yet, with the long feather in the close-fitting cap she wore, she made up even those few inches. Landing lightly on the deck, the Wolf reached deftly behind her back. With nearly magical speed and grace she loosened the rolled net she carried and tossed it high in the air. With a bemused smile, Bem watched the net drop neatly over Red Whale, and—fast as lightning—yanked a cord to pull the net tight around the captain. Stepping toward Fishbum, standing dumb-struck beside his captain, the Wolf drew her sword and—THUNK!—struck it into the deck in front of him. Noticing that his sea-coat was not buttoned—and obviously intending to be rude—Bem proceeded to carefully button it from bottom to top.

  “Well, now,” the Wolf said, looking closely at each of the Daring Dream crew in turn. “I am Bemrasoria Madsoor—to which of you mealy-brained, gill-quivers might I address some complaints about the condition of this ship? Shattered bowsprit...Smashed oarports...a dangerous rip in the main sail...the hull crusted in barnacles...Seems downright unfriendly and inhospitable for sea-beasts to lay around on the beach over yonder like a mess of oily-looking spoiled fish and not have this ship ready for sail. There’s a wide sea to cross and the Ogress will begin to blow in a few days. This ship isn’t fit to sail across a cup of warm spit in a calmin’ breeze. Who’s the captain here? Why isn’t he in irons for not having this ship ready to sail?”

  Bem Madsoor’s display of bold, insulting defiance toward their captain stunned the Daring Dream crew. The normally brave and rowdy crew stood in mute astonishment. Rough manners and harsh characters were well known to them, but the brash, insulting spirit of this Wolf was startling. Such an insulting beast ought to be jumped and tossed into a rowboat. But something about Bem’s manner took the edge off of her insults. Something was likeable about her. There was a rough good-humor in her eye and the constant smile on her face seemed genuine.

  “Aye, I seem to recall seein’ the captain,” Red Whale said dryly, still covered with the net, but taking it calmly, startled as much as the rest. “He’s a bad one, though—you can be sure of that—he sailed this here ship right through the Narrows, laughing all the way. And he’s done worse and made port in ships a sight worse than this one. We call him ‘Red Whale,’ and you would be well to know he’s like a Jack-o-Lantern because he has a kindly, laughing shell on the outside, but the fires of hell burn on
his insides. So, I offer the warning to one so bold.”

  Bem smiled and bowed to Captain Gumberpott, then pulled the net away with lightning agility. “Now dear captain,” she said bowing to him, “I see that irons are not needed to restrain you, which I hope is not an indication of how you will serve in the coming campaign against the Rummers. We sail tomorrow at dawn, do we not?”

  “Tomorrow!” Red Whale exclaimed. “Not on your life, Wolf! This ship needs repairs and the crew needs rest. We don’t leave here before a week passes.”

  “Well,” Bem replied, “it ain’t my place, as a common sea-beast of this ship, to give my opinion on the captain’s plans. But, speaking as a beast that knows the way through the Voi-Nil to the Outer Rings—and that you have maybe two days before the Ogress begins—I wouldn’t think the good captain would want to keep us waiting.”

  Red Whale nodded slowly. “I suppose ya ca’in put up ta bowsprit yerself? Fix the oarlocks? If ya can do that, we’ll sail ta’marrer for sure.”

  “Dear captain,” Bem replied with a grim smile, “although you’ve been too long asleep in your hammock—wasting precious time—I see you’re now awake and your crew ready to work. Every worthy beast must put heart and back to making the ship ready for sea. We sail tomorrow at high tide, if any of us knows how to sail a ship! Delay beyond that and there’ll be no reason to sail at all.”

  “No reason t’ sail at’all?” Red Whale roared. “We t’ben sailin’ two months n’ we’t nen’t stayin’ here, ner goin’ elsewhar’ thin t’a the Outer Rings. We’s’sailin’ but when’ I say’s we sail!”

  “The Ogress sweeps the seas clean beyond the First Past,” Bem said. “Every sea-beast with half a brain has long ago made the voyage across those dangerous seas or is safely in port to wait out the Ogress season. You’re free to make your ship into drifting splinters and trash if you want, but not one sane beast will sail with you when the Ogress is running. You sail into the seas beyond the First Past this time of year and no one will hear from you again. The Ogress are storms like you’ve never seen—sucking winds strong enough to haul a ship right up off the waves and then slam it down again, rain so thick a beast can drown without ever falling in the sea—Aye, the monster waves are the best of it! You want to run the Ogress seas a few days late, you can be my guest, captain—but neither I, nor your crew will be going with you! We sail tomorrow, or we don’t sail at all.”

  “And now ya be decidin’ to be t’ Capt’n, is that it, hey?” Red Whale bellowed.

  “Nay, captain,” the Wolf replied. “You are the captain and given the orders for sure. I’m just a common sea-beast—in your service, as ever and always—but, being the captain, you’ll not be fool enough to sail beyond tomorrow, you mark my words.” Bem paused and pointed to the first evening stars that were beginning to appear in the sky.

  “You see that star low in the sky over there,” she said, pointing toward the far western horizon. “You see how that star shimmers so differently from the other stars? That’s because the air is so hot and wet over there that it makes the light dance in a crazy way. That doesn’t happen except in Ogress season. When that early star starts to dance you’ve got a few days until the first Ogress storms begin. We have maybe ten days to get beyond the Ogress seas. With ten good days of favoring wind, we can make more than a thousand miles and that’s enough to get well across of the Ogress seas before the season begins. Either that or we stay here for two months until the Ogress season is over. You’re the captain and any good captain will do the same.” Bem smiled at Red Whale and clapped him on the shoulder. Captain Gumberpott said nothing, realizing that Bem Madsoor  was likely correct but also knowing that poorly done repairs could have disastrous results.

  “Come on, Captain,” she laughed, “surely you don’t refuse a pleasant voyage before the storm...and prefer to be pounded by waves the size of a mountain?”

  “Sure ’n it’s like that, ya flim-flammin’ bag ’o wheeze!” BorMane burst out as he stepped forward to join the conversation. “Don’ cha be wheezin’ about the Ogress. There’s ways ta fly across the seas and non’ be payin’ visits ta the Ogress. Sleepin’ with dragons and pickin’ shark’s teeth bein’ the way—and what ship except Darin’ Dream be fitted for that, I’m askin’ ya? Why she’s ta strongest ship I ever sailed and that’s why her belly’s built for haulin’ riches!”

  “You say you’ve sailed the Daring Dream?” Captain Gumberpott exclaimed.

  “Aye, Capt’n,” BorMane replied, “T’was the first voyage of Darin’ Dream that the dragon split me head...we’d shipped out for the Rummin’ Lanes. The ship’s owner heard there was riches ta be had tradin’ in trallés and rummer points. Now where’s the Rummin’ Lanes? All we know’d t’was beyond whatever we knew. Aye, we didn’t know zact’ly where we was headed. Bard Chop—t’was the owner of Darin’ Dream—just says, ‘Sail into the Voi-Nil, so’west ’o the settin’ sun and find the island called First Past. That’ll be all ya need to fill with treasures...’ and that was all we simple crew-beasts knew.”

  “And did ye find treasure?” Red Whale asked with interest.

  “Aye, that we did,” the old Coyote replied. “Darin’ had a belly full of dragons—and dragons are gold in the Rummin’ Lanes. Ya capture dragons and ya bein’ rich. We filled the belly of Darin’ Dream with dragons—Aye, ya fancy that, mates—Dragons!—’n sailed on to the Second Past, which bein’ smack in the Rummin’ Lanes. Dragons is gold, ’n we traded ’em to a Rummer Boar—Sabre Tusk d’Newolf...”

  Whirling rapidly to the side, BorMane stepped toe-to-toe with Bem Madsoor, who had leaped toward him, her face contorted with rage.

  “...’n don’t be cussin’ and spitin’ about him either, or I’ll split yer gut!” BorMane said firmly.

  “Sabre Tusk is slaver scum!” Bem yelled. “There’s not a worse outlaw on the seas! Don’t you go defending him, Old Salt! Sabre left me for dead and that’s the best thing he ever did. How many Sharkish villages has he burned and plundered? How many Sharkicts has he made into galley slaves? His crimes are beyond counting! And you defend him? Nay! You always dare to speak his name in praise! Let me end that now! Stand with your sword and I’ll slice his memory right out of your brain!”

  With such speed that he more heard the whistle of Bem’s sword slicing past his ear than saw it, a large swatch of BorMane’s long grizzled hair dropped to the deck.

  “There, you jelly-brained Rummer-lover!” Bem warned. “Let that be notice of what happens to friends of Rummer-scum!”

  BorMane slowly bent over and picked up the swatch of hair. With a crooked smile, he laid it across his open paw, and held it out to Bem. “Nice bit o’ sword work, mate! Can’t claim I’ve seen better ’n that. Here, lay yer paw on mine—let this slice o’ an old sea-beast’s hair be an oath-token a’tween us. Ya hear me out in m’ story, and I’ll not be mentionin’ Sabre Tusk a’gin.”

  Bem shot a long steely gaze straight into BorMane’s eyes before replying. “Aye, Old Salt, I accept the oath-token, but on one condition—You will also hear my own story. We will exchange our stories, then speak not again of Sabre Tusk.”

  “Done, an’ sure ’n it’s a promise,” BorMane answered.

  The Daring Dream crew, who had been watching these developments tensely, relaxed again. Admiring comments about Bem’s speed and skill with a sword and jokes about BorMane’s new haircut rippled among the crew. There was obvious relief that a more serious fight had not occurred between two beasts that all now considered friends.

  “An’ now I’ll be sayin’ that we was tradin’ dragons—just like I was sayin’ before—when I tripped o’re a coil o’ rope and fell flat-dab in front o’ a dragon. Slickin’ a snap that dragon jus’ sliced me head open. Now you knowin’ that’s certain death—bein’ a dragon bite. No beast lives long after a dragon bite—jus’ meltin’ away in a pile of purple, crusty skin and fits o’ coughin’.

  But I bein’ standin’ here with ya—now how can that bein’
right? I askin’ ya? How can that bein’ right?”

  BorMane paused, looking around the crew, before smiling again at Bem. “Well, it bein’ right because Sabre Tusk saved me hide, that’s how it bein’ right! He—and it weren’t none but ’im very self—rubbin’ the wound with a pack o’ mud n’ dag fungus the Sharkicts use on jellyfish stings. ’N I’m here today because Sabre Tusk put that mudpack on t’wound n’ made me drink some in water every day. How close I came t’throwin’ m’soul Over t’Waves. But Sabre Tusk saved me! That bein’ the right o’it—say what else y’may about ’im. Yah, I served ’im for many a year. Am I bein’ proud o’ his burnin’ and plunderin’? Nay—I not bein’ proud o’it—but I’ll ever bein’ grateful to ’im for not throwin’ m’soul Over t’Waves. N’ why did I bein’ such a sorry beast, take ’is fancy enough to bein’ worth savin’? Why I could un’erstand all the Sharkish folk—all the scattered, isolated bits o’speakin’ I could un’erstand, n’ Sabre Tusk had not a bit o’kindness in ’im, but he weren’t an fog-top either. ’N when he sees that I un’erstand the Sharkicts—yet I never bein’ there a’fore—why he’s thinkin’ I’m some kind’er a magical seein’ beast or other, n’ plops me in ’is crew.”

  “You’d never been there before, yet knew the language?” Bem said with surprise.

  “Yah, n’ that bein’ the sure thing o’it, mate!” BorMane laughed. “See what good there bein’ in listenin’ a bit, rather than jumpin’ all t’pot and swingin’ yer blade every wish-what? Ticht…ticht…ticht…Me sayin’ I’d never been there before don’t mean I weren’t there before! M’Pappy bein’ a Whale-Sailor all o’ the seas. One day we bein’ anchored in a bay some’wit at sea, just restin’ our whales and lettin’ em fish as they’d like, ’n we was picked off by some Wrackshee raiders—so, ya seein’ it was mor’in like I bein’ a wee beast and takin’ by some Wrackshees n’ sold for slave. How’in I got from there to bein’ on board the Darin’ Dream is mor’in the story I’ve got to tell now—but that bein’ the main o’it.”

  “So you must have sailed across the Voi-Nil and back again!” Fishbum exclaimed.

  “Yah, ’n a fair bit mor’n that for sure,” BorMane chuckled. Why, I bein’ up ’n down ’n back across every sea that’s ever bein’ sailed! That bein’ why I know’s another way to beat the Ogress.”

  “And how may’t that be?” Red Whale asked.

  “Sailin’ with the Whales,” BorMane replied. “The Whales runnin’ their trade straight across the Stills—that bein’ the long bit o’ the seas where the wind hardly blows. No sailin’ ships can go there—least ways, not ’n be comin’ back. But, be tradin’ with the Whales in a good way, ’n they’ll bein’ willin’ to hook up a ship in their freighter runs across the Stills—forty whales or so runnin’ freight don’t think nothin’ of the Stills. We can run the Stills w’ the freighter whales ’n not givin’ a thought to the Ogress. So fix up Darin’ Cap’t Gumberpott, I can’t bear t’ see ’er ailin’—then we run the Stills with the freighter whales.”

  Satisfied with astonished looks on the faces of those around him, BorMane smiled and invited Bem to tell her own story. “Yah, now, Bem—comin’ on ’n tell us what you knowin’ that we don’t.”

  Although Bem had known BorMane during her stay at Narrows End Bay, before this she had not heard his whole story. Now, hearing his account left her thoughtful as she realized that although their stories were different, they were also similar.

  Cooled somewhat in her anger, Bem began slowly. “Picture, if you will, a young beast skinning sharks out on the beach right in front of her home. Her parents and friends—Sharkict folk, all of them—are unloading a good harvest of sharks from the boats. Ole Waller and Spug Mismer—the biggest and strongest beasts in the village—are hauling the sharks up on the beach where a lot of us young beasts are skinning them, cutting up the meat, and hanging it up to dry in the sun. Beller Waller is out in her kayak checking the shark pens to make sure all the gates are latched properly. Then she screams—‘RUMMERS! RUMMER RAIDERS!’—sighting many Rummer boats coming swiftly into the bay. Rummers don’t sail in easy, drop anchor, and come ashore a few at a time. They row their galley ships fast as the wind right up onto the beach and jump out all at once to attack. They kill only those who resist, so most of the Sharkicts stand and watch when a Rummer raid occurs. In a short time, the raiders have taken all the shark meat they want, taken whatever hostages they want to replace dead or escaped galley slaves, and then they depart. If any hostage struggles or others try to prevent their being taken, they are soon clubbed senseless and their homes are burned. I was taken in such a raid by Sabre Tusk and my family’s home was burned.”

  “What do the Rummers do with all the fresh shark meat?” Katteo Jor’Dane asked.

  “They trade some of it with the Wrackshees in exchange for new galley slaves,” Bem replied. “But most of it they sell in Port Newolf and other such places where the Dragon Bosses buy it to feed to their monitors. Sharkicts used to raise only enough sharks to feed themselves and sell a little dried shark meat to the few sailing ships that came by once in a while. But that changed when the Rummer raids began—the Rummers won’t take anything but fresh shark meat. So the Sharkicts started raising more and more sharks. When the Rummer raiders come, they fill their ships with fresh shark meat and—if the local folk are lucky, there’s enough left to sustain them after the Rummers leave. If not,” she said with the fierce look, “it’s a long hungry season.”

   As these last words were spoken, Bem suddenly pulled her sword and once again sent the blade whistling past BorMane’s head. A long swatch of hair again dropped to the deck, this time on the other side of his head.

  “There, Old Salt—having tidied up your haircut and reminded all that I will forever hate Sabre Tusk and hope to destroy him—I have nothing more to say.” The red Wolf picked up the swatch of BorMane’s hair from the deck and, just as BorMane had done earlier, laid it across her open paw as she held it out to the Coyote. “As you have offered, I also offer an oath-token. No more will I trouble you about Sabre Tusk. We are one crew now and Daring Dream and our good Captain will need us to be united.”

  Smiling broadly, BorMane placed his paw over the oath-token offered by Bem. “Yah, mate, it’s not bein’ an easy voyage any ways it comin’. It’ll be all o’ us as sails through it all, or none o’ us will bein’ back.”

  So saying, BorMane and Bem Madsoor joined the rest of the crew as work began to repair the Daring Dream. Fourteen days later, Captain Gumberpott steered the fully repaired ship out of Narrows End Bay, set his bearings for southwest of the setting sun, and sailed off into the Voi-Nil.

  Having fresh provisions, clean water to drink, and favoring winds made good spirits abundant on the ship. Heading south to join the Whale freighters, each day, Daring Dream plowed deeper and deeper into the Voi-Nil. Each night, the ship’s council gathered around Red Whale’s table and discussed the coming prospects for the voyage. Except for BorMane and Bem Madsoor, no one in the ship’s council had ever before sailed the seas they were now crossing, and each night BorMane and Bem were called upon to tell more of what they knew. Images of an entirely new world emerged from the accounts they gave.

  “So, as I take it from what you say...,” Red Whale observed one night during a council, “...the Voi-Nil is far from empty. Our charts may be blank but there’s beasts and more beasts sailin’ and frettin’ and blusterin’ in every direction.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Bem replied as she stood leaning on the table and gazing over the chart rolled out before the council. “You need to think of the Voi-Nil as being different clans of beasts scattered across the seas—so isolated that they’re almost worlds unto themselves. Isolated, but not alone. Apart, but connected by the sea.”

  Crossports Slizzer

  Five days later, the weather was flawless when Crossports Slizzer, the Whale freighter port, came into view. A feeling of almost childish excitement raced among the crew—the first landf
all well beyond the reach of Captain Gumberpott’s charts! Crossports Slizzer had a snug harbor holding perhaps twenty ships, some lying at anchor off shore, and others tied up along the wharf. Boldy-painted houses of the better sort faced the harbor—their sharply-pointed, red tile roofs reaching skyward, surrounded by wide verandas with lush gardens. A squalid labyrinth of back lanes, overflowing with jumbled shacks and grimy shops, spilled up the hillsides beyond the harbor. Palm trees waved their feathery fronds gently in the breeze.

  A strong stone fortress perched on the rocky prominence that towered over the entrance to the harbor. Vultures circled lazily high overhead, their wide wings catching the brilliant sun and sending dark shadows sliding across the deck, as Daring Dream tied up at the wharf.

  Eyeing the vultures circling above, BorMane commented, “Corsairs cruising, Capt’n—that fort up there is their base. They knows what’s what with every ship in these parts—seein’ everything, tellin’ what they want, plunderin’ the ones they choose.”

  “And no one tries to stop ’em?” Red Whale asked.

  “Oh, sure,” BorMane chuckled, “there’s plenty as could stop ’em if they wanted—but, ya see, ships come to Crossports Slizzer because they want to. It’s a bit of—well, I guess you’d call it—a ‘twilight place.’ Ya see all those ships in the harbor? Why, everyone of them’s either a pirate or pays protection money to pirates—but since this is the only port in hundreds of miles, and the best eatin’ in the Seven Seas, why, let’s just say good and bad slosh together here—a sort of ‘convenient peace,’ ya might say.”

  A sickly-sweet, but sharp and fiery, odor hung in the air. The scene was strangely quiet, with only a few wagons, pulled by teams of enormous tortoises, creaking and rumbling across the cobblestone streets. Here and there, the wagons stopped and a couple of burly Watch-Cougars hopped off and picked up bodies from the street, tossing them on the wagons. The process continued as the wagons worked their way down the street. The strange sight put a damper on the enthusiasm of the crew.

  “Not a soul breathin’!” one sea-beast howled. “Why’s t’s the plague! We’ll catch t’death o’ it! Let’s get out’a here!”

  “Yi! You’s got that right! Looks like body-pickers gatherin’ the dead—poor souls!” another moaned.

  “Now don’t you go makin’ up stories you’ll be fools for later!” BorMane chuckled. “You’re just seein’ a bit of what draws these ships here!”

  BorMane, having stopped at Crossports Slizzer several times during his voyages crisscrossing the Voi-Nil, was the only member of Daring Dream’s crew who knew the place. “You’ll see now how it is with the Voi-Nil,” he chuckled. “Soon’s we hit the wharf and the gangway goes down, you’ll see wonders!” the old Coyote chuckled. “Why the ships’ are peaceful ’cause their crews have abandoned them ’n gone ashore. And the town’s quiet ’cause now just about everybody’s sleepin’—it’s the daily Snooze.

  “The daily Snooze?” Red Whale asked.

  “Crossports Slizzer is known for its eatin’,” BorMane answered. “Why there’s shark chop houses, muck n’ crots rooms, Slizzer Eel barbeque joints, seaweed cafés, and lizard roasters by the dozen—but those ain’t places for a decent beast. There’s better places for the money you’ll spend. Check out Flimbard Street, the area around Stand n’Step, or head up the road to Lugmate Hill—the grub’ll cost you dear—a hundred pieces of gold for a spot o’ tea, but any other meal, in any other place, seems the vilest slop imaginable in comparison. Fat paunches make for lean wallets in Slizzer.”

  “I don’t want to see any more wonders than I have to,” Red Whale replied. “We’re bound for the Outer Rings and I don’t want to waste more time in port than necessary.”

  “It won’t take long to see the wonders, Capt’n,” BorMane said mysteriously. “Why, the place itself is a wonder—a regular crossroads of the world, where before it was just a bit of rock piled high with tortoise dung and overrun with  flies and mosquitoes—but once the first Whale freighters discovered the place, and the pirates followed them like flies after honey, things began to happen. Now it’s eatin’ and fightin’, eatin’ and fightin’, nothin’ but eatin’ and fightin’. Slizzer’s a wild and reckless place, full of careless livin’ and terrible bad singin’. Aye, you’ll soon see how it is.”

  A loud staccato, almost like the sound of someone beating a drum, interrupted BorMane and Red Whale’s conversation. A red-faced old Seagull was nearly running up the gangway, stumping toward them on a wooden leg. The old seabird appeared to have a rugged history. Long white feathers poked out wildly around the edges of a dark blue tricorn hat, calling attention to a ghastly, purple-white scar running diagonally across the bird’s face. As the old Gull approached, Red Whale noticed that the old seabird’s beak was cut off at an odd angle—an angle exactly matching the run of the scar.

  “Crinoo!” Red Whale exclaimed softly, “that old sea-beater’s got stories to tell—looks he took a cutlass slash full in the face sometime.” The wooden peg, fitted snugly to where the Gull’s right leg ended just above the knee, suggested other stories the old Gull could tell.

   “You’d be Cap’t Gummerpobb of the Darin’ Dram, I’ll wager you a barrel of Blazin’ Muck!” the Seagull roared loudly, greeting Red Whale in a deep, gruff voice.

  “And who might you be, blowin’ in like a typhoon?” Red Whale asked.

  “I’m Jick Maloon, mayor of this paradise—but beasts ’round here’bouts call me JM Death,” the Seagull replied roughly. “Or, mostly just Death—that seems what folks remember most about me—seein’s how I’ve been killed or marooned and left to die thirteen times and I’m still here, as ya see.”

  “In that case, seems as how they’d call you, JM Living,” Red Whale replied with a chuckle.

  “Not considerin’ the fate of those as tried to kill me,” Death replied. “Those as messed me and failed aren’t around to mess me again—I see to my business, you understand.”

  “Sure,” Red Whale replied slowly, “it’s all right whatever they call you—anyone’s nearly cashed in as many times as you have doesn’t need folks arguin’ with ’em about their name!”

  “Blest if I know what you want here,” Death said roughly. “My Corsairs scouted you and this ship don’t ride low enough in the water to be loaded with cargo. So what are you and where’s your home?”

  “We are adventurers,” Red Whale replied, “bound into the Voi-Nil on behalf of the great Lord Farseeker, charged to explore and discover new lands. We’re from nowhere you know, going somewhere we don’t know.”

  “Cut out the fancy talk—the last fancy talker I met didn’t have the sense of a crab,” Death snapped. “Look, I ain’t holdin’ a reception here,” he continued, surveying Red Whale, ship, and crew with eager and greedy eyes. The long red scar across his face seemed to swell with blood as his excitement grew.

  A mass of grayish-white feathers fell in a disheveled bush across the collar of the Gull’s seacoat. The wild feathers vibrated as Death’s head shook with excited glee. “Only two kinds of ships tie up here—those as take liberties with other ships and those dull ships o’ sea-beasts, such as yourselves, just wantin’ to come ashore and feast on Slizzer’s delights.”

  The old seabird drew a long slim knife from its sheath at his belt and ran the sharp point across his own neck, causing a slight flow of blood to flow. “Now you see, Capt’n,” the Gull continued, “Slizzer is a lawful and orderly town. The law here is simple—we’re organized to the discipline of plunder and booty. Our fundamental rule—which I, as mayor, am sworn to uphold with this knife—is that every ship as stops at Crossports Slizzer contributes to the common purse. No pay, no stay—it’s as simple as that.”

  The Gull, with a look full of meaning, again ran the sharp knife gently across his neck, leaving another faint line of blood. “Most of the fine ships you see here are owned by Slizzer’s best citizens—Fancy Grace; Black Fats, the Mad; and Captain Bull. These fine, civic-min
ded citizens do as they will with the ships they find at sea—and pay ten shares of their booty into the common fund. For those as trade in the dull commerce of normal business, or are just passin’ through Sizzer, it’s two thousand pounds of gold—payable now, if you please.” The Seagull looked at Red Whale expectantly.

  “What do you mean, two thousand pounds of gold, payable now?” Red Whale demanded. “I don’t owe you a thing, you old swindler! Now get off of all this nonsense—you’re not dealing with a fool.”

  “Weell,” the Seagull replied slyly, “you don’t seem to have shown any extry smarts in landing here, thinkin’ use of the docks was free! You tie up and—weell, then—you pay for the privilege of dockin’ here. If you don’t have gold, I’d take three thousand pounds of pearls instead.”

  “But we’re here to do business!” Red Whale exploded. “All we want is to contract with the Whale freighters to carry us across the Stills.”

  “That’s fine for you and the whales, but not for the shopkeepers and cafés—nor for the mayor. That’s why I, as mayor, am charged to maintain proper respect for law and order! Now, Cap’t Gummerpobb, I think you’re best advised to pay up—then step right this way and bring your crew with you. You’ll see that Slizzer is an absolute emporium of…”

  “Bah! You greedy-grub! Why, I’ll not pay you a chip ‘o sand nor tossin’ anything in your grubby little wing until I’m ready.”

  “Oh, my,” Death replied, “if you don’t have enough money, don’t worry—we specialize in loans! You can borrow against your ship and crew if you prefer—our bankers are just over there.” Pointing to a hulking, wildly-painted ship anchored a couple of hundred yards away, Death continued, “It won’t take but a moment to get them here.”

  “Your ship’s not much to look at, Cap’t Gummerpobb, but takin’ the crew into the equation—looks like I could sell ’em right easy—why, I think that would be plenty to secure a fine loan for you. You’ll have plenty to give you a good time ashore!”

  “my name’s not, Gummerpobb!” Red Whale roared, “The name is Captain norayn gumberpott—And i’ll have none o’ your stinking-bilge-sucking loans!”

  “Suit yourself, Cap’t Gummerpobb,” Death replied, “but unfortunately, you’ve already been docked here nearly an hour and that tab must be paid.” Pulling a red cloth from the inside pocket of his seacoat, Death waved it high over his head, toward the strange-looking schooner anchored near the harbor entrance.

  A few moments later, loud cursing and hooting laughter erupted on the schooner. Red Whale lifted his glass and, squinting, swept it across the mysterious ship. He could see the decks were crowded with rough beasts, weather-beaten, ugly, and fierce, armed with every manner of weapon imaginable. Although the ship offered no immediate threat, it was clear that the Seagull’s “bankers” were an unpleasant lot. The nature of the possible unpleasantness, however, remained a mystery as Red Whale watched the raucous activity on the ship. Amazingly, the schooner seemed to be sinking in the water at the stern!

  The look of surprised curiosity on Red Whales face was not lost on Death. “Yash, Cap’t Gummerpobb! I see you’ve never seen a shark-deck ship before!”

  With a sneering laugh, Death explained what was happening. “That would be Fancy Grace coming to offer you a loan! You see, Fancy Grace opens a valve and lets some water into tanks in the stern o’ her ship. The weight tilts the ship backward and the stern slides lower in the water.”

  Death paused and gave a hard eye to the Daring Dream crew gathered round. “HAR-HAR-HAR!” he laughed, “Then the real fun begins! Put your glass on the stern o’ the ship, Captain Norayn Gumberpott, and see what happens now!”

  Red Whale peered through his glass with an increasing sense of that things were about to become very unpleasant, indeed. Red Whale’s pulse quickened as feelings of fear and astonishment see-sawed within him. Nearly transfixed by what was happening, Red Whale watched a large gate swing open on the schooner’s stern, allowing seawater to flood into the ship.

  “Don’t worry, Captain Norayn Gumberpott,” Death said with an evil smile, “Fancy Grace’s ship won’t sink—water only pours into the shark-deck. Now, I imagine you wonder what a ship needs a shark-deck for—well, just keep watching…”

  In a few more moments, hideous sea-beasts, each armed to the teeth, came swarming out through the open gate, riding huge sharks! Red Whale stifled a gasp—judging each shark to weigh at least a thousand pounds, sea-beasts riding astride, holding the tall vertical fins! The powerful sharks carried their riders rapidly across the harbor toward Daring Dream, with only their top fin and half-submerged riders visible.

  A female Wolverine led the approaching horde. Red Whale studied her carefully through his glass. Small in stature but not in ferocity, the pirate leader cut slashing circles above her head with a cutlass, kicking her shark for maximum speed. Swearing at the top of her lungs like a Banshee from hell, the rascal’s wild orange eyes flashed like fire. Large earrings dangled beneath a broad jet-black hat. Dressed in bright, gaudy clothes made of the finest cloth, the little pirate leader had wealth, but not good style, Red Whale decided. Several front teeth were prominently missing, but numerous diamonds sewn into her seacoat flashed in the sun, off-seting that defect. A long, lavishly woven scarf fluttered around her neck. The overall effect was elegant mayhem. Guessing that over a hundred pirates were closing in on Daring Dream, Red Whale did not need convincing that they could easily take his ship as “payment” for any supposed debts he might have.

  Death, smiling broadly, said, “I have the honor of introducing you to the meanest, and most colorful, of my business associates—Fancy Grace. Now, shall I invite them to come on aboard and take control of your ship, or would you prefer to pay the two thousand pounds of gold, and go ashore and have some fun?”

  “I don’t owe you a cup of spit, you dung-brained robber!” Red Whale replied. “The only gold we have we need to pay passage with the Whale freighters, but if you will call off your business associates, I will give it to you.” Looking Death straight in the eye, Red Whale added, “Then if you’ll just let us cast off, we’ll go our way in a few minutes and be out of your way forever.”

  “Well spoken, Cap’t Gummerpobb! Hear! Hear! I sense we have reached a deal. Your crew will praise you for your wisdom…but, now that you’re paying up, why not let the crew go ashore and enjoy Slizzer? They won’t want to miss the fun!” Stamping his peg loudly on the deck, the old seabird shouted, “Muck n’ Crots! Muck n’ Crots! Muck n’ Crots for the crew!” The noisy Seagull bounded from one end of the deck to the other, long ragged feathers flying and sharp keen eyes darting quickly. Stamping his peg, he called out, “No’se Spill Muck and Steamed Crots for the crew! Come on ashore and drank ’er up, and chuck ’er down, mates. Welcome to Crossports Slizzer! Hurry ashore—it’s the greatest emporium of eatin’ and fightin’ in the world! Just hand over the gold and everyone goes ashore for all the Muck ’n Crots or Screamin’ Slammers they can eat!

  Astonished at how the conversation had changed, Red Whale blustered and hollered, “My crew is not goin’ ashore to be worked over with more of your pick-pocket finance! Take the gold and go pay someone to drop a boulder on your head! Now, get off my ship!”

  JM Death, however, simply ignored Red Whale as if the Captain’s wrath were a bit of breeze. The Seagull pulled a watch from his pocket, peered at it, and furrowed his brow. “Captain,” he said, “you’ve now been tied up at the dock going on eighty-five minutes—with that additional time, and still none of your crew ashore taking advantage of Slizzer’s delights, and having declined Fancy Grace’s offer of a line of credit, I’m afraid that you owe me another thousand pounds of gold.”

  Looking at his watch again, then motioning toward the pirates cruising on their sharks just a stone’s throw away, Death said, “There, Captain—you see that Fancy Grace awaits your decision. Is it going to be Muck and Crots for the crew, or Fancy Grace taking your ship and selling you all for slaves?
With you tied up for almost ninety minutes and still not producing business for Slizzer, I fear that Fancy Grace requires an answer. You’ll notice the diamonds dazzling on Fancy Grace’s coat, as numerous as the stars in the sky,” Death continued. “Each one represents a ship taken for plunder—she just loves to keep track.”

  Gazing at the whooping, ferocious marauders circling in the harbor, Red Whale could hear Fancy Grace howling above the din like a hungry wolf. Having no arms with which to give resistance, he faced the reality of surrendering his ship and crew. He face grew deathly grim and his frame trembled. It was not the terror of a coward, however, that moved him. It was the energy of a tireless captain considering and discarding plan after plan to save his ship.

  Red Whale was about to concede defeat when BorMane suddenly stepped forward.

   “So what’s a piece of t’ Maggon Dragon worth t’ ya?” he asked.

  “The Maggon Dragon?” Death said, his eyes blazing with excitement.

  “Aye, you heard me right,” BorMane replied.

  “But the only one’s that’s seen the Maggon Dragon is those as died in its jaws and myself!” Death exclaimed.

  “An add t’ that m’self!” BorMane said with a smile. “And proof of it’s right ’ere.” Pulling out the piece of dragon’s tail he wore on a chord around his neck, BorMane dangled it as he continued. “Now’s long ’bout’s three years past, I was sailin’ with Sabre Tusk d’Newolf—and we’s land’d on Maggon’s Island, not especially knowin’ where we were. Why, we’s takin’ on water n’ pickin’ fruit n’ then the Dragon comes on us fierce! Slashed up a few of our crew, till by the Anc’t Ones—I drove a harpoon up his gut—purest blessin’ or luck, call it as ya may.”

  Red Whale gave BorMane a questioning glance. 

  BorMane ignored him and, walking up to Death, dangled the piece of dragon tail before him. “So, who’s tail do ya think this might’s be?”

  “The Maggon Dragon,” Death replied slowly, his eyes wide as saucers.

  “Thought ya might’a heard of the Maggon Dragon,” BorMane chuckled, “why that’s what happened ta your leg, ain’t it?”

  “The first ship I sailed years ago…” Death began, staring at the piece of dried dragon tail, “…there was a mutiny, and the captain and those of us loyal to him were marooned on Maggon Island. The Dragon got everyone but me and the captain—well, except for my leg. The Dragon got that, curse him! The captain saved my life. We lived in a cave for nearly six months, keeping a fire going all the time to keep the Dragon away. We’d never go anywhere without torches—fire was the only thing the Dragon feared. We built a raft—always keeping a ring of fire burning around our worksite. Sometimes, the Dragon would just come right down and lay on the beach, watching us. Believe me, we never let that fire die down!”

  Reaching out and touching the piece of dragon tail, Death continued. “When the raft was finished, we sailed away. We were picked up by a pirate ship and joined the crew—and that was my first escape from death, in this case the literal jaws of death.”

  “So’s it may give ya some revenge ta wear a piece of that ol’ monster, eh?” BorMane said.

  “Yash! I’d give anything to wear proof that the Maggon Dragon got its just desserts.”

  “You let Cap’t Gumberpott and me go ta the Whale freighter station, and I’ll give you this piece of the Maggon Dragon’s tail,” BorMane said.

  “Why, sir, I’d rather have a piece of that wicked beast,” the old seabird laughed, “than have clothes to wear for the rest of my life!”

  Turning to Red Whale, the Seagull slapped him on the back. “Here you go, Cap’t Gummerpobb—I take your gold, and give half to Fancy Grace to buy nice. I let you and the Coyote go ashore to bargain with the Whale freighters—and, if you successfully make a deal with them, I give you half the gold back to pay them, but I keep the piece of Dragon tail.”

  Red Whale felt encouraged, but also suspicious and troubled by Death’s offer. It seemed to provide a way to get Daring Dream out of the clutches of Death and Fancy Grace. But, if he promised half his gold to Death, and Death honored the bargain, would that leave enough gold to make a deal with the Whales for passage across the Stills? Red Whale looked hard at Death, studying his face for any sign that might suggest his true intentions. He had little reason to trust Death and his “business associates,” but on the other hand, what other option did he have to save Daring Dream and his crew?

   “Is that all?” Red Whale asked.

  “That’s all,” Death replied, smiling. “Load the gold onto the dock and give me the Dragon tail—then, you’re on your way to the Whales.”

  “No,” Red Whale responded firmly. “I give you my word as an honorable beast that I will fulfill my part of the bargain, but the gold stays on the ship.”

  Death again took the red cloth he had used to summon Fancy Grace from his pocket. Holding the cloth as if he were about to wave it again, he looked at Red Whale questioningly. “Would you prefer to deal with Fancy Grace on this matter?” Death inquired with a smug smile.

  Red Whale hesitated a moment, casting a gaze around the deck at each of his crew. Then he gave the order: “Fishbum, have our ship’s gold loaded off on the dock.” Following suit, BorMane slipped off the cord holding the piece of Dragon tail and gave it to Death.

  It took the better part of the day for the four-hundred bags of gold coins to be unloaded from the ship. Specially built to inhibit easy theft, the compartment holding the gold was constructed in the deepest reaches of the ship. The passage leading to the compartment was extremely narrow, more than twenty-feet long, and passable only by a single beast squeezing sideways through the opening.

  All day long, Death complained about the slowness of unloading the gold. “What’s this,” he fumed, “if this doesn’t speed up, I may change my mind about the bargain we made.”

  “Calm down, mate,” Red Whale replied, “we’ve only got one sea-beast small enough to squeeze through the passageway—and even if we had another, only one can go in the passage at a time anyway. And because they have to squeeze sideways, they can only carry two bags at a time anyway.”

  “Whoever designed that storage plan was insane,” Death sighed, “ten hours and we’re still not done.”

  “Or a genius,” Red Whale chuckled. “Sure made it hard for you to rob us.”

  Between Drowning and Drowned

  The sun was just sliding below the horizon when the last bags of gold were removed from Daring Dream.

  Looking at Red Whale with disgust, Death snarled, “Now that you’ve enjoyed your little joke, get out of here—before I change my mind.”

  “Will the Whale freighter station still be open this time of day?” Red Whale asked.

  “Get out of here, you idiot!” Death yelled. “Anytime you go, you’ll be able to find out what you need to know about the Whale freighters. Now get going before I call Fancy Grace back!”

  “Fishbum, you’re in charge until we get back,” Red Whale said as he and BorMane left the ship and went off to find the Whale freighter station.

  “Aye, aye, Capt’n!” he replied. “Good luck.”

  Walking down the gangway onto the pier and heading up the street running along the harbor, Red Whale looked sideways at BorMane.

  “When you told us the story about that piece of dragon tail before, you never said anything about a Maggon Dragon,” Red Whale observed. “Something tells me that not all the stories you tell are true—I thought you promised something when I took you on as crew?”

  BorMane turned and grinned at Red Whale. “The only promise I made was not to tell any stories that would put your crew in danger,” he replied. “I think the story I told Death about the Maggon Dragon had the opposite result.”

  “Aye,” Red Whale chuckled, “I was just lettin’ you know I noticed.”

  Walking down the street running along the harborfront, the sea-beasts were surrounded by the sights and sounds of Crossports Slizzer. The town was grad
ually coming back to life following the daily Snooze. Eating establishments crowded every street and disorderly sea-beasts of every rank and condition swarmed the dives and vendors nearest the harborfront.

  Red Whale, although he had sailed many seas and visited endless exotic ports, felt that he was thousands of miles from anything familiar. It was not that the houses looked strange—they did not. It was not that the beasts were curious in dress—they were no more odd-looking than other beasts he had encountered in his travels. No, it was the smell of the place that turned his senses upside down.

  There was a muscular, thick-coated Badger roasting nuts in a spicy-smelling oil; a dark, broad-faced Fox, with pigtails reaching to his ankles, juggling burning incense balls; some swarthy Sheep, with dirty matted hair, selling pungent salamander kabobs; a big, round-eyed Goat, wearing a lizard-tail hat bristling with colorful fishhooks, smoking fish on racks in the street.

  Everywhere they looked, Red Whale and BorMane saw braziers smoking, cook pots steaming, and fish, seaweed, clams, and every other type of seafood being unloaded at eating houses that stretched in every direction down the streets of Slizzer. On every corner, there were vendors with carts selling their stock in trade. Not only boiled lobster and baked fish, but also Most prepared their goods on small braziers, lighted with charcoal. There was even a strolling vendor, with a tiny brazier hooked over one arm, roasting corn and potato cakes. All of them sang their wares:

  “Six o’clock and time to eat!  Snapped n’ pickled lizard’s feet!”

  “Frumming with toast! Frumming with toast!

  Slapped and slathered Frumming with toast!”

  “Pearl a pound! Pearl a pound! Pissts on sticks, Pearl a pound!”

  Along the more crowded streets, some of the larger cafés had troupes of musicians and performers calling customers to come in and eat. At one such establishment, where a surging crowd of rough sea-beasts was elbowing to get in, a vile-looking, hulking Boar was pounding on a drum and singing out:

  “Here’s Muck, and fine Crots, from Yobmahoy Bay,

  They’re never more Slammed than they are today!

  They never are roasted, and never are fried,

  And never, never, ever artificially dyed.

  Stuff them in now, and Snooze it off later,

  Our Muck & Crots with cold jugs of d’Flater!

  Check your knives at the door, put your cutlass at rest,

  Suck up our Muck, and toss down our fine Crots—

  There’s no other way, but to say they’re the best!

  Beyond the prodigious eats, there was also a monstrous fights going on. Beasts going down the streets simply stepped aside as beasts flew through the air, fighting and wrestling. The fighting seemed so normal a part of life in Slizzer that—despite the struggling masses of beasts, punching and swearing at each other, and the flying bricks, rocks, and furniture—it went almost unnoticed.

  CRASH! Two sea-beasts whirled past Red Whale, grappling at each other’s throats, smashing into a sidewalk café table, where several other sea-beasts were eating. In an instant those offended beasts joined the fracas—now ten beasts were cursing, biting, kicking, and howling for blood. BorMane jumped out of the way as a huge Boar dived past and tackled another sea-beast, who struggled free and pounded on the Boar with a chair. In an instant, a first-class brawl was spreading down the street. Except for the beasts involved, no one seemed to care. Everyone else went on with their business, seeming unconscious of the angry swearing, ferocious fighting, and flying blood and fur.

  “So you see the wonders of Crossports Slizzer,” BorMane laughed as he and Red Whale worked their way through the fights and crowds. Red Whale agreed that the sights, sounds, and smells of Slizzer were, indeed, hard to resist. At one corner there was even a jovial sea-beast brandishing a cutlass, herding customers into a lizard roasting dive. Had Red Whale not had an urgent need to find the Whale freighter station, he might well have stepped into one of the joints and had a plate. But instead he pulled on BorMane’s arm every time he seemed to be wandering toward one of the cafés.

  “Eye’s to the front, BorMane!” Red Whale said as he once again guided his wandering mate away from particularly enticing odors wafting from a Shark Chop House. “Our mates need our help—no time to stop and eat now.”

  BorMane sighed and rejoined Red Whale. BorMane led Red Whale toward the cargo-handling area of the docks and, after walking several more blocks, he pointed to a street sign that said, Freighter Way. Turning down the narrow alley lined with warehouses, they picked their way through throngs of greasy, unshaven, muscular Roustabout Hares moving cargo to and from ships. Everywhere, barrels, crates, boxes, casks, and bundles of lizard skins and shark hides were going up and down, or moving from here to there.

  It was not a jolly place. “Heave! Heave! Stain your backs! Heave!” Straining and struggling with heavy ropes and cargo, the Roustabouts cursed and swore at anything that came near them. They even pushed and shoved Red Whale and BorMane out of the way if they happened to stumble against them in the crowded, tight spaces of the alley.

  Deciding that they should ask for directions to the Whale freighter station, they waited to speak to a towering Barge Goat who appeared to be of some importance. At least he was bellowing at a group of burly Roustabout Hares struggling with an overturned cart of fish. “Blast yar’t laz’n stumps! Fly! Fly! Lift yar’t stumps!” the Barge Goat roared.

  The weary Hares, despite the evening chill, were shirtless in the heavy damp; even their coarse leggings sweat-soaked from the heavy lifting. Panting, their breath heaving from exertion, they weren’t in a mood to be hurried. “Shush yar’t gob, M’ster Billows! Narn a single one o’ us that eats at yar’t table. We’ll be loadin’ yar’t wagon right along. Just be shush’in yar’t gob!”

  The rough-looking roustabouts, some with colored bandanas tied across their heads, others with snug cotton caps, one with a bowie knife stuck in his belt, another with a large piece of his ear missing, gave the Barge Goat surly looks as they returned to their work. Showing their contempt, the Hares thumped on barrels as they rolled them, giving beat to a swamp shanty wailed in the most tortured Barge Goat brogue:

  ’N Mis’tr B kissed his’elf in the mirror,

       ’n ’is crew b’gan to cheer.

       Oh, oh, up he puckers, hav’in no fear.

       ’N he kissed his’self on the nose,

       ’n thanks from the ladies arose,

       Oh, oh, no more, no more shall they fear.

       No more, no more, no more shall they fear.

       Mis’tr B has found ’is lovin’ own dear.

  Oh, oh, he’s found ’is lovin’ own dear.

   

  The Hares howled with glee. “We’ll be done in a lickety-cut, yar’t own lovin’ beauty! Har, har, har!” they laughed. Grumbling darkly, Mister Billows struck a match and puffed angrily on his long clay pipe, glaring at the Hares. “Blasted rob’nabb’it cargo weevils!” he fumed, muttering amidst the Hares’ raucous laughter.

  As the Barge Goat turned away from the Hares to return to other business, Red Whale stepped forward. “Excusing myself, sir, but where’d I find the Whale freighting station?”

  “Gone, gone this week last—at least if’n you want shippin’!” the Barge Goat replied.

  “Gone!” Red Whale exclaimed.

  “Aye! And what ’bout that’s you don’t und’stand?” the Barge Goat said.

  “But I’m desperate for their help,” Red Whale cried. “How can they be gone?”

  “They run’s a four-month freightin’ route,” the Barge Goat responded. “Two month’s out stoppin’ at ports, then two month’s back stoppin’ at different ones.”

  “Four months!” Red Whale moaned. “We can’t wait four months!”

  “Which way’s you shippin’?”

  “We’re bound for the Outer Rings and wanted to avoid the Ogress. So, we were lookin’ to the Whales to carr
y us across the Stills.”

  “Four months,” the Barge Goat repeated. “No chance a’fore that. Only shippin’ runs are in directions where there’s breeze’in for sailin’ ships.”

  Red Whale was furious. Surely Death had known the Whale freighters had departed! He had allowed Red Whale and BorMane to go on what he knew would be a disappointing trip. “Crinoo! Zarr!” Red Whale scowled as he and BorMane retraced their steps. “Oh, and he’s a cleaver one!”

  Returning to Daring Dream at a rapid pace, Red Whale found Death lounging contendedly on the sacks of gold coins piled on the dock. A goodly number of Fancy Grace’s crew surrounded him, quietly peeling and eating shrimp. The ferocious pirates seemed to take no notice of Red Whale and BorMane. Being stripped naked to the waist, however, showcased the gruesome scars criss-crossing their bodies, sending a message impossible to ignore. Hatchets, knives, and cutlasses hung from wide belts at their waist. The purpose of the display of force was obvious to Red Whale.

  “So, it appears our deal is off,” Red Whale commented.

  “Heavens, no,” Death replied with a gruff laugh. “The bargain’s sure and true’s it ever was.”

  “Then command those rascals to leave and allow me to reload my half of the gold. We will gladly depart as soon as it’s loaded.”

  “Then you are the one breaking our bargain,” Death replied.

  “Me?” Red Whale roared. “Me break the bargain? Nay! I have honored my part of the deal.”

  “Then all the gold, and the piece of Maggon Dragon’s tail, are mine,” Death said with a smile. “The bargain was that I would return half the gold to you if you were successful in making a deal with the Whale freighters—but, you were not successful.”

  “Crinoo! You bilge-bathing, vomitous scoundrel!” Red Whale exploded. “You may be clever, but your trickery only proves that all the blood in your head is fly-swarming dung!”

  “I think what it proves is that I win, you lose,” Death replied. “Now be happy that I show you mercy and let you keep your ship and crew. That’s a gift from your friends. We do hope you’ll call at our friendly harbor again someday.”

  Red Whale and BorMane exchanged glances. No words were needed. In countless Ship’s Councils during Daring Dream’s voyage, their goal had been reaffirmed time and again. They would find the Outer Rings and return to Lord Farseeker with a full report in the shortest possible time. It was out of the question to wait four months at Slizzer—even if they wanted to!

  “Mr. Fishbum,” Red Whale called to his mate waiting at the top of the gangway, “make Daring Dream ready to depart. We leave with the ebb tide.”

  “Aye, Capt’n, she’ll be ready.” Fishbum responded.

  “Look lively, mates!” Fishbum called out. “See to the rigging and stores!”

  In high spirits, the crew gave three cheers to Captain Gumberpott and Daring Dream, and fell to their tasks.

  “Where’r you bound?” Death inquired, just as Red Whale turned to board the ship.

  “Back the way we came to catch what’s left of the Fair Temps,” Red Whale replied.

  “The Fair Temps will be all blowed out for the season,” Death said. “You’ll be sailin’ straight into the path of the Ogress—and speaking as your special, personal friend, only a fool would sail those waters during Ogress season.”

  “I prefer the danger I know, to the dangers I don’t,” Red Whale answered. “I’ve weathered many a storm, and prefer the company of a hurricane to friends such as you.”

  Returning to the ship, Red Whale directed the preparations to depart. Some hours later, Daring Dream rode the falling tide out of the Crossports Slizzer harbor and set its prow northward to catch the Fair Temps. Riding a fresh breeze across easy seas, the spirits of the crew were high. Fifteen days after leaving Slizzer, the weather began to thicken and the skies turned gray and gloomy. Scudding along at full-sail, Red Whale searched the sky with his practiced weather-eye, suspecting that Daring Dream was heading into a heavy storm.

  By the following day it was raining steadily and the seas became ugly. During the night, the rising screech of a gale-force wind combined with the pounding waves to drown out every other sound. The endless torrential rain, mixing with the flying spray from waves breaking across the ship, gave the effect of having no sky whatever above—as if Daring Dream had entered some twilight zone between drowning and drowned.

  At the first sign of dangerous weather, Red Whale had ordered every stitch of sail to be taken in, furled and tightly lashed. It made no difference. The crew below decks, waist deep in water, working the pumps, heard nothing of the howling wind shredding the sails like tissue paper and carrying the masts away as if they were twigs.

  Daring Dream, as sturdy a ship as was ever built, labored valiantly against the tremendous waves, taking on considerable water, but refusing to admit defeat. For two days and nights the crew bravely and feverishly worked the pumps. Lashed to the pumps to keep them from being tossed away from their posts by the pitching deck, the struggling crew managed to keep the water from rising beyond the bottom deck.

  As the storm at last began to diminish, vivid flashes of lightning from the departing rain clouds revealed the fearful reality of the nearly-shattered ship. The heroic efforts of the weary crew had saved her, however, and with only 3 feet, 8 inches of water left in the hold, Red Whale ordered the pumping stopped and all hands to their bunks for an urgently needed rest.

  Unable to sleep himself, Red Whale climbed over the wreckage to reach the main deck. Unseen in the darkness, he stepped into a gaping hole that had been opened in the deck. Stumbling forward, his arm slammed into the jagged remains of the mainmast. Stabbing pain momentarily took away his breath. Struggling to his feet and holding his injured arm tightly, Red Whale’s pain-narrowed eyes widened with the happy sight of Fishbum coming toward him.

  “Looks desperate, Capt’n, and you look to be the worst of it yourself, sir,” Fishbum said as he reached Red Whale. “Come on with me, sir, you need some rest—let’s take a look at that arm n’ get some sleep.”

  “My Mam always told me to work my head more than my seat,” Red Whale replied. “I can’t rest. We are in more danger now than during the storm—our water supply is ruined for sure and our food may be lost as well. We can’t sail or even use the oars because the stores and crates shifted in the storm and the oar-ports are blocked.  No, the crew needs a few hours rest, but I must think how to save the ship.”

  So There Are Beasts In This Waste!

  Red Whale’s considerable bulk, hitting the sea during his escape from the Daring Dream, created a loud SPLOOSH that had not gone unnoticed. Roolo Tigg was a light sleeper in normal times, but the dramatic storm of recent days had left his mind racing, making it nearly impossible to sleep despite his physical exhaustion.

  SPLOOSH! “What was that?” Roolo thought to himself, instantly alert. Leaping from his hammock, he made his way quickly among the tightly-packed hammocks of the sleeping crew. Gaining the deck, and looking over every side of the ship, he found no apparent case of “sea-beast overboard.” He was just turning away from the side to return to his hammock, when he noticed that the night watch was not at its duty—Red Whale and Fishbum were gone!

  The realization that the Captain and his mate had apparently abandoned their watch made Roolo instantly suspicious. “They must have gone overboard for some reason,” Roolo realized. But what could have caused the rock-solid, trustworthy Captain to abandon his post? Surely, something was desperately wrong!

  “What’s up, Mr. Tigg?” Bomper Spits asked. Bomper had wakened when Roolo had collided with his swinging hammock during his movements through the dimly-lit interior of the ship. Hearing Roolo’s steps up toward the deck, the curious Bomper followed.

  “Somethin’s gone to worsts,” Roolo replied. “Capt’n and Fishbum are gone—over the side it appears. What’s that about?”

  “That would be the problem over there,” Bomper cried, pointing to the swarm of kayaks
rapidly approaching the ship, splitting into streams with the obvious intent of encirclement.

  “Capt’n saw it comin,” Roolo agreed. “Too many to resist, and they’re on us with complete surprise—we’re taken without a shot, that’s for sure.”

  “Yah,” Bomper agreed, “Capt’n and Fishbum went for help, I’d wager. But what can we do—all our mates is asleep—no time to rouse and defend.”

  “Follow the Capt’n, as always,” Roolo replied tersely, “over the side, and quick about it.”

  So saying, Roolo and Bomper ducked low to avoid notice and scrambled to the far side of the ship, farthest away from the waves of attackers. Grabbing a dangling rope line to the keelboat that bobbed on the waves below, the two beasts skittered down the line into the boat and cast off. Urgently rowing with all the strength they had, the two sea-beasts managed to pull away to such a distance from their ship that, in the semi-darkness, they would not draw attention to themselves. The two beasts listened and watched as the attacking Wrackshees encircled, then boarded, Daring Dream, observing their prediction come true: the ship and all the crew taken without any apparent violence.

  “Slavers for sure,” Bomper said. “They noticed some easy pickin’s and took a wounded bird.”

  “Vast! Crinoo! That be for sure,” Roolo agreed grimly.

  “The Capt’n and Fishbum are two smart beasts,” Bomper observed. “They will make it to help, if any beasts can.”

  “Aye-Yah!” Roolo replied. “They will deal with the slavers—but we have no way to know where they are or how to help them. We need our own plan. What should we do?”

  “The Dream is wrecked,” Bomper said. “The slavers will pick her clean and leave her bones to rot where they are—unless they torch her, which they may not want to do. BorMane says there’s not much of law and order in these parts—Wrackshees, Rummer Boars, and other unwashed baddies everywhere. I’d be doubtin’ that the ones as took our ship want to draw flamin’ attention from their competitors!”

  Pausing for a moment, Bomper chuckled, then continued, “I say we go for help of a different kind than the Capt’n’s probably after—and what else will he need beyond hands to help him rescue his crew, why a ship to sail! I say we get help to repair the Daring Dream—a few days will get her seaworthy again. We could work at night so’s to not attract attention—keep the work low and out of sight during the day—then raise the masts and sails in a single night, so’s to show our hand only when we’re ready!”

  “Yah!” Roolo agreed. “You direct repairs while I raise a new crew—then we go after our mates with the Dream and carry them off!”

  Having agreed to their daring plan, the two sea-beasts wrapped pieces of cloth around the oarlocks to deaden the sound and rowed off into the night. Things began going badly immediately. One of the oarlocks broke off completely, forcing the sea-beasts to paddle the stout boat. The heavy, eight-foot long oars, designed to give maximum power with the leverage provided by oarlocks, were nearly useless as paddles. After struggling for nearly an hour to break the iron-hard wood of the oars, they managed to shorten each oar. The handle of one of the oars completely shattered, however, leaving only the flattened end of the oar and one foot of handle. In such circumstances, paddling was an exhausting enterprise—especially as the wind increased and kicked up larger and larger waves.

  The stout-hearted sea-beasts battled the waves and current for several hours before finally succumbing to a bone-tiredness that steadily robbed them of their strength. Giving up the struggle for the time being, Roolo and Bomper slumped in the keelboat and feel asleep. Drifting on the current, the keelboat carried the sea-beasts far down the coast. After several hours of peacefully drifting on the current, the violent pitching and rolling of their boat awakened the sea-beasts. Large waves, driving their boat toward the shore, had turned their craft parallel to the waves, making it roll dangerously.

  The sorry state of their oars left Roolo and Bomper ill-prepared to deal with the emergency. “Broadside to the waves, we don’t stand a chance!” Roolo cried. With no way to change that situation, the sea soon proved him correct. Their wildly pitching boat capsized, tossing Roolo and Bomper into the water.

  Dodging the keelboat tossing on the waves, the sea-beasts struggled to shore as best they could. Slogging up on a wide sandy beach, the sea-beasts dropped to the sand, panting. Surveying their situation, they noticed they had landed on an extremely wide beach extending most of the way around a small cove.

  As they caught their breath, their keelboat was also being tossed toward the beach, and soon they had landed it securely on the sand.

  “What now?” Bomper sighed, feeling clueless about what to do.

  “Don’t know,” Roolo replied, “don’t rightly know where we are, which makes it hard to know where to go.”

  “We were pushed to shore from that direction,” Bomper said, tracing the path that had landed them on the beach. “My guess is that we rode the current down the coast from the same direction.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Roolo agreed, “but that still doesn’t tell us what to do now.”

  “Well,” Bomper said, grinning sheepishly, “I think we’ve shown that we’re not very good sailors with our current vessel! I’d recommend we try our luck walking for a while.”

  Roolo agreed that the prospects of success with their keelboat were not promising. “I say we stick with our original plan to seek help with repairing Dream,” he suggested. “If we find beasts as can help us with that, we may also get help with finding our mates.”

  “Let’s pull our boat up on the beach beyond the high-tide line,” Bomper added. “That way, it will be here if we decide we need to come back this way—we don’t know what lies ahead, and we may think that ’ol slug of a boat looks pretty good sometime.” Working hard, they succeeded in pulling the heavy keelboat far across the sand to a point where it was safe from being washed back to sea by the tide. Then, deciding that the best likelihood of finding help was to go inland, they traveled away from the beach along what appeared to be the easiest route upward through the steep, rocky hills rising away from the beach.

  Walking all day, Roolo and Bomper noted that the air, which had seemed mild and fresh on the beach, became colder and damper as they ascended higher into the hills. As sunset approached, the sky took on a deep red-orange color as the sun settled behind an increasing veil of clouds. Roolo and Bomper, sea-beasts to the heart, knew practically nothing about traveling on land and even less about sustaining themselves without a ship’s cook. Miserably hungry and thirsty, having taken their last food and water aboard Daring Dream, they halted under the protection of a large solitary pine tree. The protection afforded by the tree against hunger and thirst, however, was limited to the numerous nobby pinecones scattered beneath the tree.

  The ravenous sea-beasts were just beginning to consider pounding the pinecones with rocks to try to soften them up a bit, when the faint, but unmistakable, scent of cooking fish wafted past them. Exchanging glances of astonished happiness, Roolo and Bomper ran off in the direction from which the smell seemed to be coming. Coming around a huge boulder, they found a young Cow crouched before a cookfire. The young beast had made camp in a small pocket of sheltered ground. Protected on one side by the boulder and overhung by a rock ledge, the snug little campsite looked very inviting to the troubled sea-beasts. Tired, dirty, and so thirsty they could barely speak, yet somehow this did not dampen their greeting as they approached the Cow rocking on her haunches before the fire.

  Almost shouting with joy, Bomper called out a greeting, “Holo! Hey! Look here!”

  “Ah, there! So there are beasts in this waste,” the Cow responded, returning the greeting. “Name’s Helga and I’d thought there wasn’t a beast within miles—haven’t seen anyone in two days.” Motioning for her visitors to sit down, she continued, “Sit down. Take a rest. I got some fish I’m happy to share and there’s a spring of fresh water over there.”

  “Ancient Ones, be tha
nked!” Roolo said. “Things are looking better!”

  “The water in the spring runs pretty cold,” Helga said. “I’ve got some more fish over there. Go over to the little pool where the spring runs and you’ll see a leather bag held under the water by a rock. The fish are wrapped in corn husks inside—keeps them fresh. Bring them over here and we’ll throw some more fish on the fire. I’ve got plenty.”

  It was not far from tears of joy that seemed to cloud the eyes of the sea-beasts as they followed Helga’s instructions. Having nearly given themselves up to enduring a long night of hunger and thirst, watching Helga preparing the fish made them doubly thankful for her open-handed generosity. Hanging the fish over a makeshift spit made from tree branches, Helga cooked enough fish to satisfy everyone’s hunger.

  “I’m glad I finally found you,” Helga remarked as she handed around the fried fish and dried cherries that made up her simple meal. “I’ve been calling on the Ancient Ones to help me find you.”

  “You knew we were coming?” Roolo said with surprise, greedily attacking the fish with his fingers.

  “No, I didn’t know you were coming,” Helga laughed, “but I am looking for some sea-beasts in trouble—and I seem to have found some!”

  Exchanging stories as they chewed and drank their coffee, the three beasts laughed and joked as the night deepened. Finally, the conversation dropped off into broken, fitful comments as the beasts settled into their own tired reflections. All probably would have dropped off to sleep had the wind not begun to pick up. Threatening clouds had been building all evening and now they cut loose with a cold, driving rain. Pushed by the strong wind, even Helga’s protected campsite was not sufficient to provide shelter. Sharp, driving raindrops, nearly cold as ice, pelted the three beasts viciously. Worse, the driving rain soon produced a torrent running down from the rocky hills, flooding the campsite.

  “Nothing to do but sleep up on the rocks,” Helga announced, “we won’t stay any drier here than we will out in the rain—might as well try to get out of the flood!”

  Taking the lead, Helga climbed up the bare rock like the seasoned mountain dweller she was. Feeling her way along in the dark, she found a fairly broad and flat place to stop safely. Roolo and Bomper followed, scrambling up the rocks. Wishing for a tent, a cave, even a good clump of bushes to break the force of the driving rain, but having nothing by their stout hearts to protect them, they settled down, backs to the rain and heads tucked, to wait for dawn.

  Christer’s Plan

  Driving rain had pelted the struggling band of travelers since morning. Soaking in through every gap in the heavily-tarred storm-capes they wore, the cold rain added misery to every step Helga and her sea-beast companions took. More than a day of tramping had brought the party no closer than halfway to Dismal Pass, despite their urgent need to reach the sea-beast’s grounded ship. Soaked and exhausted from the difficult climb up the steep, jagged road to Dismal Pass, the struggling band needed to find shelter soon.

   “There, Mr. Tigg, there!” called out Bomper Spits loudly to Roolo Tigg, the Muskrat Mate who served as leader of the group.

  Roolo peered intently through the rain, shading his eyes against the pelting drops. “Maybe, Mr. Spits, maybe,” he replied, seeming more to sense what Bomper was pointing out than to actually see it. “You lead the way, Mr. Spits, I’m only lucky enough to see my own nose. This cartnapp-wolloper-digglebust rain will blind me in both ears if it don’t let up soon!”

  As they moved on, Helga became aware of what had drawn Bomper’s attention. It was not a sight, but a sound—a faint clink-clink-clink as if small stones were being tossed. The clinking pattern was unnatural. Surely some beast was making the sound. Who was it? And why?

  It did not take long to discover the source of the sound. As the band of travelers proceeded, the direction of the sound became more certain, and following the sounds, Bomper led the group off the road and up a deep and narrow rocky ravine. They had not gone more than a dozen paces when there was a sudden movement, an explosive WHING-WHOOP-WHIZZZ noise—and to everyone’s astonishment, Bomper was suspended about thirty feet in the air!

  “Flamin’ bee-whimmers! What a ride!” Bomper laughed, cradled neatly in a net sack made of heavy-cord. The sack obviously had no exit, the top being pulled tightly closed by ropes. Bomper’s footsteps had triggered some manner of trap, and a very effective one it was. In addition to the sack being tightly closed, he was too far in the air for his friends to be of much immediate help. It would take some considerable thought to get him down safely.

  Twisting slowly in the driving rain thirty-feet in the air, his comrades calling to him anxiously, Bomper realized his predicament was not simply fleeting fun. He had just reached this realization and gathered some choice oaths to hurl at his comrades, when his sack began to rise rapidly. Someone was pulling on the rope from which Bomper was suspended.

  Bomper’s ascent was so rapid that he had no time to gather his wits. In short order, the sack that held him captive was hauled into a wide, roomy cave running deep into the side of the ravine. “Quite a sorry thing, old binger!” said a short, squat Coyote with a red handlebar moustache, flashing dark eyes, and a jovial smile as he quickly opened the sack and released Bomper. A snug-fitting cap was pulled low over his head and he wore coarse dungarees and a heavy homespun shirt.

  “Can’t be too careful—there’s Wrackshees running all about. The track through the ravine is one they used to use sometimes. He-He-He...but I put an end to that...He-He-He. My warning trap lets them know they had best not go further or they’ll set off my boulder dropper. He-He-He. Yes, well, at least you didn’t set off my boulder dropper—but, then, that’s got to be triggered by more than the likes of such a scrawny bone-bags as you.”

  The Coyote’s dark eyes flashed with merriment. “But, even so, old binger, I think I’ll disconnect the trigger rope on the boulder dropper—wouldn’t want to be a bad host. They’re really quite nice boulders—the Wrackshees pretty well leave me alone. He-He-He.”

  The Coyote walked over to where a number of thick ropes were looped through a series of iron rings pegged deeply into the cave wall. The ropes went off in different directions. “Let’s see—the boulder dropper would be the blue one.” Grasping a rope with a blue mark painted on it, he tied the rope securely with a complex knot.

  “There,” the Coyote said turning back to Bomper. “Your friends down there would think I was a very bad host,” the Coyote chuckled, “if they triggered the boulder dropper. He-He-He. Well, yes—how about a pot of Wheeze and a few shells of Slicker to welcome you to my humble home? But I suppose I should invite your friends to have some, too. So, if you will just step over to the hearth and make yourself at home, I’ll bring your friends up in a wink.” The Coyote motioned to a sturdy cobblestone fire circle that had been built to one side of the cave. Piles of soft pounded-bark blankets invited lounging around a small, cheery fire. A sharp but inviting aroma came from a blackened copper pot, bubbling and steaming as it hung from an iron tripod above the fire. The pungent aroma from the pot added a twang to the dominant odor of wood smoke that clung to everything in the cave. A haze of smoke swirled across the roof of the cave as it slowly found its way to the cave opening, where wisps slipped away to the outside.

  Soon Helga and Roolo joined Bomper in the cave. An amazing and well-designed system of simple pulleys enabled the warning trap to lift considerable loads. Once in the cave, all slumped under blankets or crouched as near to the fire as they dared, trying to force the deep, biting cold from their bodies. When the band of travelers had settled comfortably in the cave, the Coyote asked for quiet, went to the cave entrance and listened for any telltale change in the noises of the falling night that might betray Wrackshee movements. Hearing nothing unusual, he carefully reset the warning trap repeating, as before, “Can’t be too careful.”

  Having completed these security measures, the Coyote walked near the fire, pulling off his cap and hanging it on a peg
as he went. Helga noted the Coyote’s ears were painted and notched in a style she had never seen before. What it signified she could not guess and gave it no further thought as the Coyote began to speak.

  Using a long-handled ladle, he filled several iron mugs with the bubbling brew from the copper pot. Dropping a spoon of honey into each mug, and sprinkling some crumbled, dried herbs on top of each one, he handed the mugs around.

  “Borallt welcomes you to his humble lodge. I was not expecting such grand company so I have only a little Plenty Toot Wheeze prepared and only a few mugs. But such comrades as we surely are will not mind sharing. Fortunately I just returned from a trading trip to Port Newolf. Those packs in the corner is filled with the best Slickers around—and there’s plenty for all!”

  Helga soon learned that Slickers were the largest oysters she had ever seen. Their thick rough shells—the size of small plate—were highly prized for the morsels of tender, delicious flesh inside. Despite their rough appearance, Slicker shells popped open easily and soon the band was popping Slicker shells open and greedily “slicking down” the sweet, slimy meat with abandon.

  As the Slicker feast progressed, Borallt showed his guests his preferred means of discarding Slicker shells. With but a little practice, they learned how to toss a Slicker shell a distance across the cave, bounce it off a particular spot of wall, and have the shell go zinging off into the ravine below. Clink-clink-clink. Clink-clink-clink. If the Slicker meat itself were not so delicious, the sheer sport of scattering the shells would be sufficient to make the oysters a treat.

  Gradually, the warmth of the fire, the sharp taste of the Wheeze, and the fullness of their bellies brought quiet to the tired band of travelers. After they talked, joked, and cursed the weather, Helga and Roolo questioned their Coyote host about his solitary life. They learned he survived by trapping snakes and selling bales of snake skins to traders in Port Newolf. When they began to inquire about the best way to get through Dismal Pass without risking capture by the Wrackshees, he chuckled again.

  “He-He-He...I know another way,” Borallt said as he listened to their urgent queries. “You dare not go through Dismal Pass,” he continued. “I came through there this very morning and the grass on either side of the road had been trampled to muddy pulp. The ashes of many cook fires and the scooped out skins of roasted lizards were everywhere. That means Wrackshees—lots of them.” The old Coyote chuckled again. “He-He-He...You go through Dismal Pass, you’ll be a Wrackshee slave...He-He-He!”

  Helga was puzzled. How could Borallt laugh about such bad news? But every time she or Roolo tried to ask him a question, he would only chuckle and mutter that he “knew another way.” It made Helga restless.

  “Soon it’s going to be cold, brutally cold, in the Pass,” Borallt said at last. “That cold rain that your sea-beasts suffered through—that was the lucky part. The Needle Rain is coming. The cold rain just keeps getting colder and raining harder and harder, until the rain freezes into tiny shards of ice. Call it snow if you want—but it’s sharp enough to draw blood. I'll make you a promise that the Wrackshees will be sitting warm in their camp in the High Boulders. That’s the only sheltered campsite where they can sit out a Needle Rain storm and still control the main passage on the road. They’ll sit there in their tents, tight and warm ’till the storm blows out. No beast will be able to get past them—and no beast is likely to try during the storm—but they won’t be moving either. He-He-He...”

  “We can’t just sit here!” Helga said with frustration. “I don’t care how long the Wrackshees sit warm in their tents. I want us to move!”

  “He-He-He...” the Coyote chuckled again, sipping the first mug of another batch of Plenty Toot Wheeze he had been stirring.  “He-He-He...well, well...so you think I should rush right out and show you the way, do you?” Slowly taking another sip of his Wheeze, Borallt stood up and went to the rear of the cave where the flickering firelight gave way to deepening shadows.

  “Christer! Hey-lo! Christer! Now!” Borallt called out into the darkness at the rear of the cave.

  “Unless I miss my guess that would be your way out,” he said, returning to his seat by the fire. With a slight bow as he approached the group, a tall, slender Wood Cow, in dirty and worn barkskins, came out of the darkness and dropped to the floor, sitting cross-legged near Borallt. The young Wood Cow, about Helga’s age, gave a surprised glace at Helga, as he sat down. He seemed to be as astonished as was Helga herself to find another Wood Cow clan in such a place, so far removed from the Wood Cow homeland!

  Borallt explained that the young Wood Cow known as Christer was his trapping partner. “Sorry to wake you, Christer, I know you have been up the last two nights checking traps before the storm hits, but these travelers need to know what you’ve seen. What can you tell them?”

  “There are many breezes stirring,” Christer replied. “Lots of beasts are camped in the mountains—many more than the Wrackshees. The monitor caravans have been delayed for weeks and are still not able to run—the roads being flooded. No one knows when the weather will break, so everyone waits. The Wrackshee Bozz is camped up at High Boulders waiting like everyone else for the weather to allow the trading to begin. As soon as the Needle Rains pass, the slave-bidders will surround him like flies on rotting meat. It will be a hell’s-brew of shabby cheating and fighting, wretched slaves, half-witted trallé drivers, madness, and wild-eyed greed—no place for a decent beast.”

  Christer paused to yawn and take a stretch, then continued. “On the other hand, I heard something very interesting along the trap lines—I ate some Flamin’ Pike and Crusts with Mirty Tee in his camp one night. He had seen a strange group of travelers—a male Wood Cow and Owl, and a female Cougar—over on the Far Slope heading down the Wrackshee Coast. They was moving in broad daylight, just as big as life—a dangerous business that—they don’t call it the Wrackshee Coast for nothing. Only a beast without a lick of good sense, or crazy with desperation, would travel the Wrackshee Coast in daylight. There’s danger a-plenty even in the dark. But that’s just it—the High One and his blightin’ bilge-sucking buzzards won’t let anyone trade with the Wood Cows. Makes it impossible for a lot of Wood Cows to make a livin’ or have a future—which is why I came out looking for something new and ended up working with Borallt. Anyway—the Wood Cow, name of Breister, told me he’d heard there was a terrible shipwreck up on the coast and the crew’s in a terrible fix.”

  “Share out some more Wheeze, Borallt!” yelled Mr. Tigg. “That will be our mates! Whoop! Zallarooo!”

  “And that will be my father!” Helga hollered. The news threw Helga’s mind into turmoil. In the shadows cast by the firelight on the cave walls, Helga seemed to see the stricken ship, with shadowy bands of Wrackshee slavers flickering all around them.

  Trembling in every nerve—passionate fear, terrifying memories, and excitement mingling in a potent outburst of enthusiasm—Helga suddenly leaped up and ran to the cave opening, beckoning for the others to follow. “Come on! Why do we wait? Hurry! There is no time to waste!” Seeing that her friends just stared at her as they continued to lounge around the fire, rage and astonishment surged through Helga. “Are you dead? Senseless? Do we plan to let our friends become slaves? Come with me, or I will go alone! We must act without delay!” Helga exploded. “The sailors need our help and all of them are in the greatest danger!”

  “Whoa n’ wait a bit,” Christer said slowly, “just hold on while we figure a bit. There’s no time to waste, that’s for certain, and I’m fully agreed with you there—but there’s room for figuring to even up the odds a bit, if you ask me.” Christer paused, clucking his tongue happily, as if he had just told a joke no one else understood.

  “What’s first,” Christer continued, “...what’s first, is that you can go the way the Sn’akers go and beat the Wrackshees at their own game. The Sn’akers’ business is to elude the Wrackshees and no one does it better. A party of Sn’akers stops near here tonight to pick
up our snakeskin bales and take them to Port Newolf. If you don’t mind riding with the bales of skins, they can carry you, too! That’d be the fastest and safest way to get to the wrecked ship. If they’ve got room in one of their litters, the Sn’akers will gladly take you with them—they hate the Wrackshees and will be happy to help.”

  “Yar!” Roolo cheered. “Now we’ll be out of here and off to help our mates! When will the Snake-takers be here?”

  “Hold on partner,” Christer replied, “you’re not going anywhere fast. Only Helga can go with the Sn’akers—their litters will be pretty full as it is and they won’t have room for you all. And only the Snake-takers can run swift, but silent in the dark—too many is too much in Wrackshee country. So you just settle down with your Wheeze and rest a spell.”

  “What!” Roolo cried. “Stay here, while our mates are in danger and send Helga out to face the Wrackshees alone? That’s crazy!”

  “Just hear what’s second,” Christer replied. “Helga going with the Snake-takers will get her to the ship and maybe to her father. So, while Helga takes the faster route to the ship, you and Bomper can take a longer route around and meet her there. You’ll be plenty safe skirting around the Wrackshee areas and you’ll still be at the ship in good time. So that’s my two thoughts.”

  Although everyone wanted to continue the journey together, they also saw the wisdom in Christer’s plan.

  “Aye,” Roolo said, “there’s no reason to run unnecessary risk and Helga has the most to gain from going on ahead. We’ll meet again at the ship.”

  “Heh-heh-heh,” Christer chuckled, “so it’s settled. An hour after the twilight turns to dark, we leave to meet the Snake-takers.”

  Scrodder’s Tattoo

  Christer and Helga picked their way across a rough, scree slope, carefully following an old miner’s track that cut downward across a mountainside. They moved as quietly as possible through the intense dark of a clear, but moonless night, with Christer padding along in the lead. His keen night vision astonished Helga, as he pointed out objects she was completely unable to see in the darkness until they had moved considerably closer. Christer’s confidence in the dark allowed him to move quickly, despite being loaded with large bundles of snake skins strapped to a willow-frame carrier on his back.

  Christer trotted along lightly, almost soundlessly, his heels hardly touching the ground. Helga struggled to keep up, stumbling along noisily, often tripping over rocks or losing her footing on the scree.

  “Arrgh!” Helga fumed, losing her balance again and nearly taking a long slide down the slope.

  “Christer—how much further?” Helga whispered, picking herself back up. “I’m afraid that all the racket I’m making with draw the Wrackshees down on our heads!”

  “Shat, Helga!” Christer replied, “we’re nearly at the bottom, and anyway, can’t you see them? Can’t you hear them?” Motioning for her to stop, he cupped his ear as if listening. Helga stopped and strained her own ears, but noticed nothing unusual. The smile spreading across Christer’s face, however, told her that whatever it was that had caught his attention was good news.

  “Snake-takers,” Christer said, grinning.

  With that hint, more because she could see some shadowy forms ahead then because she could hear anything distinctly, Helga realized that they had, indeed, rendezvoused with the Snake-takers. As she and Christer drew nearer, Helga could make out brawny figures—some with arms and legs like logs—lounging and resting in every imaginable position.

  Christer started downward again, following the track to the spot where the scree ended and the troop of Snake-takers had halted. Helga followed, overjoyed to think that the long night’s journey might at last be ending, stumbling and sliding behind Christer as fast as she could, no longer concerned about her noisy advance. She paid a price, however, for her haste and once again lost her balance, pitching forward and dancing and leaping the rest of the way down the slope to keep from falling hard.

  Reaching the bottom of the slope, Helga bounded past Christer, arms windmilling wildly, as her momentum carried her on. Finally coming to a stop, breathing hard, she slowly made her way back to where Christer stood with a strongly-muscled, burly Climbing Lynx. Giving them a big, yellow-toothed smile—cheeks bulging out like balloons, a dirty straw hat pushed to the back of her head, belly hanging over a large silver belt buckle, crumpled jeans, lizard-skin boots—the Lynx pulled a leather pouch out of her pocket and opened it. Pulling several dried weevils out and tossing them into her mouth, the Lynx crunched the hard dried husks with gusto, offering the pouch to Christer and Helga.

  “Go on now, beasties, they’re shur’in not a-gonna bite you,” the Lynx laughed. “These crunchy little guys help to keep you awake, travelin’ all night, and they stick to your ribs right well!”

  Helga watched the Lynx toss probably two dozen of the hard-dried weevils into her mouth as she talked. As she looked around, Helga could make out others of the Snake-takers also eating and drinking, taking advantage of the break to nourish and refresh themselves. They were clearly a lean and hardened lot, tough and seasoned by years of running the snake-taking routes through the mountains. Although she had always heard stories about the strenuous life and legendary stamina of such mountain traders, she had never really wondered what such active beasts ate to keep up their strength.

  But now, observing the first Snake-takers she had ever seen, it was clear that Snake-takers were not fussy. Pouches holding every type of dried insect and bug were being passed from beast to beast, with the loud Crunch-Crack-Crunch of hard cockroach nuts being eaten making a faint staccato amidst the laughter and talk of the relaxing beasts. Here and there other beasts gnawed on huge crystallized knobs of pine pitch—which, to Helga, looked like they were chewing on the heel of a boot. Still other beasts were scoffing on great wads of pine branch tips, putting one sweet, woody shoot after another in their mouths and grinding them fiercely with their teeth, cheeks puffing out with gobs of pulverized material sucked on for nutrients. And, regardless of the favored snack, every beast drank from the lake—flattening on their bellies, sticking mouths in the water, and slurping deep draughts.

  “Helga, meet Darnt,” Christer said, introducing the Lynx. “She’s the trader who deals with the Snake-takers in these parts—knows the mountains well and will see that the Snake-takers get you through safely to the coast. She says the mountains are crawling with Wrackshees now.”

  “Yash, Christer! Wrackshees everywhere! No one moves except in great danger now. Even you may not get out alive if you return the way you came. Sn’akers say they must keep moving—stop only for brief rest—they must keep moving, travel light—no heavy food or water packs—only what they can carry. They must keep moving—travel by night only. The Sn’akers must go now. You must go with them! Wrackshees are just behind!”

  “Me?” Christer exclaimed. “I can’t go with them—there is no way I could keep up with their pace. I would delay them too much—I’ll go my own way back.”

  “Nash! There is no way back tonight!” Darnt replied. Then, she pointed toward the night sky, calling Christer’s attention to various constellations, talking rapidly all the while. “Yash there, Christer!” she said, pointing towards an area of the western sky. “Yash! Scrodder’s Tattoo! The Heart of Ink guides the Sn’akers through the Dismal Drain—that’s the only way passable and safe. There’s Wrackshees swarming down behind you across the ridges now. They nearly caught even me a while back, except that I was hunkered down behind a crag, and in the pitch black, wind blowing away from me, they missed me. Had they caught my scent, I’d be a slave now.”

  “The Dismal Drain! You’re out or your mind, Darnt! I’ve known more beasts to go in there than to come back out,” Christer exclaimed. “The Drain’s a wasteland—solid, barren sandstone, and fierce wind blowing all the time—there’s no way to follow a track. Even if there were a bit of dust to follow a track, the wind erases it in minutes. I’ve heard of lots of beasts
that go in there and never come out...they say the mirages in the daytime trick beasts—making them think they see a way out, but they really just wander and wander, day after day, following mirage after mirage, until they run out of water and die. I’d rather face the Wrackshees than just leave my bones to bleach out in the Drain.” Christer knew that the Drain—made of dazzling white sandstone polished to a mirror-like surface by the constant wind carrying fine particles of the eroding sand—was a death trap.

  “Yash, Christer,” Darnt replied, “that’s why you must go with the Sn’akers—they follow the Heart of Ink—that’s the only way—and travel only by night. In the daytime, even if you ignore the mirages—which most beasts can’t—the sunlight dazzles so brightly off the white sandstone of the Drain that you can’t find directions anyway. Nash—travel only by night. The Sn’akers set their course on the Heart of Ink, the brightest star in Scrodder’s Tattoo, and keep moving by night and hiding by day. I’ve made arrangements for them to take you and Helga through to the coast—and that’s your only way out now. Take it or die a slave at Tilk Duraow!”

  Pointing toward Scrodder’s Tattoo, Darnt continued, “There, you see it—the Heart of Ink is almost at the center of the Tattoo, but hangs almost by itself in the blackness around it.” Darnt paused briefly, then repeated, “Sn’akers find their way by the Heart of Ink. Hide and sleep during the day, travel only at night. That will take you across the Dismal Drain in safety. Tonight is the most dangerous portion of the trip—by morning you will be across the mountains and beyond the main Wrackshee areas, still dangerous but the worst will be over.”

  “I reckon you’re about right, Darnt,” Christer replied with a smile, “but I don’t want to slow them down, and I can’t keep up the pace—especially in the dark.”

  “Nash, Christer,” Darnt replied, “Sn’akers carry you and Helga in the pole-rolls. The Wrackshees have kept most honest beasts from traveling for now, so they’ve got enough empty space in the pole-packs for the two of you. Go with them to Port Newolf and you can find your way home from there.”

  Darnt paused as the Sn’aker leader barked out a command, “Going! Now! Quick to the packs! Bring the pole-pack over here!”

  In an instant the Snake-takers were on their feet and again lifting their packs into place—two large packs per snake-taker, one to the front, the other to the back, sturdy straps connecting the packs securely across the shoulders and around the waist. Snake-takers were renowned for strength and endurance and this band of mountain beasts was no exception to the rule: most were so tall and brawny that their huge packs appeared small against their bodies. The powerful arms and legs of Zanists and Pogwaggers pulsated with readiness—iron-spring muscles quivering for their leader’s command to go. Seemingly tireless when on a trading run, Zanists and Pogwaggers needed only ten hours to take their cargo sixty miles, including rest stops. Helga could easily see the intense coiled energy that would carry her and Christer quickly across the mountains to the coast.

  Helga noticed that the Sn’akers had once been well clad—cotton pants reaching half way down the thigh, a cotton shirt, open in front except for loose lacing to keep it from flapping in the breeze, and triple-layer soft leather moccasins on their feet. But that had apparently been at the beginning of their trip, as now only bits and pieces of clothing were still in use. It took many partially-clad beasts to guess at the full-picture of what the troop normally wore before the exertion of their labor caused their clothes to begin to come off piece by piece. By the time they had been running for several hours, racing over the mountain paths, the Snake-takers needed hardly any clothes to keep them warm, even in the coolness of the mountain nights. Proud of their speed, and knowing no other kind of life than this, most Snake-takers, by the time they had run an hour or so, wore little more cloth covering them than was needed to signify a decent beast.

  Three brawny young Pogwaggers, two Grizzly Bears and a Horse—perfectly matched in height and bulk—trotted over to where Darnt stood with Helga and Christer. Helga could see that the youthful Sn’akers were barely older than herself, but the harsh work of a Sn’aker runner had clearly taken its toll, leaving their faces looking worn and aged beyond their years.

  Two long hollow poles ran across the shoulders of the three powerful Snake-takers. Sturdy reed mats slung on the poles—two before and two after the middle Pogwagger— formed teardrop-shaped sacks. Kneeling down, the Pogwaggers allowed the sacks to touch the ground, opening the sacks to their fullest extent.

  “Climb in,” Darnt said, motioning for Helga and Christer to wriggle in at the open end of the sacks.

  “But when the pack carriers get up, we won’t be able to move!” Helga exclaimed. “The pack will close tight around us and we’ll just have to lie there like a bound-up bundle until the Pogwaggers stop again and let us out! What kind of way to travel is that?” Helga was astonished at such treatment.

  “Nash, my good beastie,” Darnt replied, “and what would you expect from traveling with a snake-trading run? They’ve got to move fast and careful in the dark—they can’t have passengers shifting around and getting themselves comfortable, it makes the packs wobble. That’s too hard on the runners—slows the runners and it’s dangerous on mountain trails. The runners got to control their cargo—not the other way around! That’s the way it is.” Darnt looked seriously at Helga, then continued, “You want to make yourself comfy, then you get yourself to the coast by yourself. You go with the Sn’akers, you go their way.”

  Looking sorrowfully at Christer, Helga shrugged and knelt down to crawl into one of the pole-sacks. She was surprised to find it was already occupied. Looking at Darnt in confusion, she pointed to the sack next to the one she had first approached. “Snake-takers get two hours off to rest,” she explained. “There’s a few of the runners resting while the others are running. Sn’akers keep a couple of slots open for those who get injured or sick—or to let passengers on urgent business ride if we can. That would be you,” she chuckled. “Come on there, friend,” she continued, “wake up and get back to work!”

  The Zanist who had been sleeping in the pole-sack got up and, shaking out his arms and legs, prepared to go back to work as a runner. “There ya are,” Darnt said, “climb on in there—one of you on each side. They will fill the front two pole-sacks with snakeskin bales to balance the load. Now get on in there and settle in for the ride.”

  Sighing with resignation and casting one last longing gaze at the night sky, Helga crawled into the open pole-sack indicated by Darnt. Christer wriggled into another. Helga was hardly straightened out in her sack when the command to depart was given, “Going! Now! Quick on your stumps! Lively and forward!”

  With an amazingly smooth lift, the Zanists and Pogwaggers leaped to their feet in unison and set off at a rapid trot. The evenness and synchronized harmony of their movement created only the slightest rocking motion to Helga’s sack. The gentle swaying and soft padding of the runners feet in their triple-layer soft leather moccasins soon soothed Helga into a deep sleep.

  Sn’aker Turncoats

  “SCHNOOCT...SNUZZYT...SNORKETOOO...” Helga didn’t know how long she had been sleeping, when the strange whistle awakened her. “SNORKETOOO... SCHZUNCT...” The whistle seemed very loud, almost in her ear, but being encased tightly in the pole-roll, she could not see the source of the noise.

  “SZZCHOONCT...SNUZZZYT...SNORCKTOO...” A distant responding whistle, in a slightly different key! Signals of some sort! This realization had no sooner come to Helga, then….ZZZZ-AAAASHH! A sudden flash of brilliant light so intense that Helga’s eyes blinked against it, even within her pole-sack! ZZZZ-AAAASHH! Another flash of intense light!

  “AAAIEEEE! AVIAFIAS!” Immediately after the first flash of light, chaos broke loose in the Sn’aker party. “AVIAFIAS! AVIAFIAS! RUN!” The confused, terrified cries came from all directions. Helga could hear the snake-carriers dropping their cargo poles and running helter-skelter. She knew of Aviafias—Vultures assig
ned to aerial security around Maev Astuté, the immense castle of the High One, ruler of the Hedgelands across the mountains. But she’d never heard of Aviafias anywhere but around Maev Astuté. What did it mean?

    As pandemonium and confusion dispersed the main group of Sn’akers, Helga realized that the runners carrying her pole-roll suddenly swerved in a new direction and picked up their pace to a furious run. Why were her runners not panicking and running for cover? Something was wrong—what was going on? The answer came quickly.

   “YAR-AHHH! STOP THEM! ZARASHT! AFTER THEM!” The confusion among the Sn’akers had turned into angry shouts and cursing. Although she still could not see what was going on, apparently the main Sn’aker party had now understood the reason for the Aviafia’s arrival. Whatever was happening, the runners bearing her pole-sack were now racing along at maximum speed, with other Sn’akers in hot pursuit. “YAR-AHHHH! THE EDGE! STOP! STOP! DON’T JUMP!” Helga’s rising panic, fed by the frantic shouts of the Sn’akers, told her that she was now being carried toward the edge of some precipice, like some helpless piece of cargo.

  Throwing her weight side-to-side, Helga tried desperately to knock her runners off balance. Her pole-sack began to sway back and forth wildly, gaining momentum. She could feel Christer doing the same in his sack. The powerful Pogwaggers slowed their pace as they struggled to deal with the now violently swinging sacks. Throwing every ounce of strength into the effort, Helga and Christer tried mightily to slow the runners enough to allow the other pursuing Sn’akers to catch up. With a final push, Helga felt the balance shift as the runners were knocked off their feet. Too late, Helga realized that all this accomplished was to send the entire group of runners and passengers flying out over the edge of the precipice. Making a long, wide arc, they sailed out of sight.

  Amidst the chaotic tumble over the edge of the precipice, the runners let go of the poles and Helga fell free from the sack that had carried her. Tumbling wildly, Helga, Christer and their Pogwagger carriers dropped rapidly. Frantically glancing about, Helga sized up her situation. Brilliant flares still brighly illuminated in the night—apparently dropped by the Aviafias and now swinging slowly to earth on parachutes. Helga could see a river shimmering with a faint silver glow far below and coming up fast toward her. She fought to control her panic. Not trusting the depth of the water and wanting to protect herself against possible rocks, she pulled herself tightly into a ball, pulling her knees tight to her chest with one arm and protecting her tucked head with the other.

  Moments later—KER-SPLOOSH—Helga hit the water with a perfect ‘cannonball dive’ and sank several feet below the surface of the river. As soon as she bobbed back to the surface, she quickly surveyed her surroundings. Surprised to note that the water was not freezing cold, she was calmed by the realization that the current was flowing at a slow, almost lazy rate. The Pogwaggers who had been carrying her had landed about 30 feet away. Although uncertain about why the runners had put her in this situation, she sensed that she could not trust them and her instinct told her to flee. She turned quickly away from them, intending to swim away, but stopped short instead.

  Not far away she saw Christer bobbing in the water. What did it mean? Why had the Pogwaggers apparently run over the edge with their pole-packs? She did not have long to wonder. In the fading illumination from the flares far above, she could make out a large willow-bark boat, escorted by more than a dozen woven-reed kayaks, heading directly toward them from shore. Helga did not have to be told who these new arrivals were—the stench was unmistakable. Wrackshees! Fierce-faced, stinking with a gut-wrenching stench, and heavily-armed with dozens of small razor-sharp throwing lances carried in bandoliers slung over their shoulders, there was no mistaking who was coming for a visit. Two Aviafias also stood on the deck of the boat.

  Helga knew there was no escape. Bowing her head toward the oncoming Wrackshees in an obvious sign of surrender and submission, Helga paddled slowly toward Christer.

  “What do you think’s going on?” Christer whispered, when Helga reached him.

  “Sn’aker turncoats, it seems,” Helga replied grimly. “Looks like they’re giving the Wrackshees a couple of slaves and some bales of very valuable snakeskins—not a bad haul, without the Wrackshees having to raise a finger.”

  “So you think we were sold out, eh?” Christer said.

  “Sure looks that way to me,” Helga replied. “This was planned—whistled signals, the Aviafias dropping flares to confuse the Sn’akers and provide light for the runners to carry us over the edge, then quickly back to darkness to cover the escape…yes, this was well-planned.”

  Their conversation ended as the first of the Wrackshee kayaks arrived and surrounded them, throwing lances drawn and at the ready should the captives try to resist or escape. Neither had the least thought of trying anything so foolhardy. Offering no resistance, Helga and Christer allowed themselves to be lifted onto the willow-bark boat, where they were made to sit with their backs to the gunwales while their arms were threaded through a series of iron rings and then their bodies chained securely—a slaving boat!

  Soon, however, Helga and Christer’s feelings of discouragement were replaced by surprise and shock. One by one, the turncoat Sn’akers were being lifted onto the boat and tied to the gunwales exactly the same fashion as were Helga and Christer! The Sn’aker turncoats apparently were captives also!

  An uproar at the rear of the boat caught Helga’s attention. A burly Grizzly Pogwagger was being dragged from the river by means of several stout ropes that had been tossed around her. A crowd of Wrackshees on the boat, together with several more in kayaks, were trying to contain the angry beast and pull her aboard the boat. The powerful Pogwagger struggled wildly against the pull of the ropes.

  “GIT YAA PAWS OFF’N ME, YAA SCUM-N-BARFERS! YAA STINKIN’ MUDBRAINS! TIE ME UP IF’N YAA THINKS YA GOT ME, BUT GIT YAA PAWS AWAY FROM ME!”

  She was not, however, in spite of her spirited audacity, able to break free. A Wrackshee, standing at the railing, raised his arm and, tossing yet another rope, landed it around the neck of the Pogwagger. With her arms already entangled by numerous ropes, the Pogwagger could not stop the new rope from being drawn tightly around her neck.

  “Pull hard, pull it hard!” the Wrackshee holding the rope called to several companions. “Silence, stop the struggle, beast, or we will pull until you are dead!” Seeing no slackening in the Grizzly’s struggles, he again roared the command: “Pull hard, pull it hard!”

  “AIEEKEEE! GHASPTT!” The Grizzly Pogwagger gasped and spluttered as the rope tightened around her neck. Her frantic struggles gradually subsided as she wheezed for breath. Realizing she would be strangled and drown to no good purpose if she continued battling, the Pogwagger quieted into submission.

  Soon she was being hauled over the boat’s railing, then dumped on the deck, gasping for air. Her coarse dark brown fur showed faint red streaks of blood where ropes had torn her hide during her struggle for freedom. Huge black eyes stared angrily at everyone on the boat, and her head, shaved close in Pogwagger style, circled endlessly back and forth, looking for a path of escape. The young Grizzly Pogwagger, yelling loudly at her captors as she was hustled over to the gunwale and tied, fell into sullen silence after she had been lashed beside Helga. As soon as she was tied to the gunwale, the Pogwagger resumed her struggle for freedom. But pulling against her bonds only succeeded in bringing a furious clanking from the cruel irons she now wore.

  Helga eyed the Pogwagger with interest. Observing the rippling muscles of her new neighbor, she mused at how the team of powerful Sn’akers had been subdued against their wills, just as she and Christer had been. Curiosity gnawed at her. It was not lack of strength or capacity to elude capture that had made them all Wrackshee captives—there had been no real threat to the Sn’akers up on the trail. The Aviafias were not attacking the Sn’akers and there was no Wrackshee attack force. The reason they were captives was solely that, for some reason, the Pogwagger and her
teammates had cooperated with the plan that now had landed them all in irons. Why had they helped the Wrackshees? And why were they also now captives? It made no sense.

  Helga looked at the Pogwagger beside her. “Why did you do it?” she asked quietly.

  There was no answer. Leaning her head back on the gunwale, the big Grizzly simply closed her eyes as if to go to sleep. Soon the Wrackshees had loaded and secured all their prisoners and stowed the bales of snakeskins aboard their boat.

  As the Wrackshee boat and kayaks got underway and moved downstream, the flurry of action temporarily distracted Helga. Her fierce curiosity about the strange occurrences involving herself and the Pogwaggers, however, did not subside. Soon she laid her head, relaxed like, back against the gunwale, and remarked to the Pogwagger beside her, “Well, well, now didn’t we both find out a bit more about the world—for now we do, and later we don’t. And, even when we do as we expected to do, sometimes it turns out we were a little too far to the left, or a little too close on the right. Yes, sir, even when we lay out good plans, life is pretty uncertain and, often, we end up nowhere close to where we set out to be.”

  The Pogwagger gave Helga a brief, fierce glance, then folded her arms and gazed straight ahead, saying nothing. Although thoroughly silent, the Pogwagger fidgeted restlessly, seemingly bursting with energy she was consciously seeking to control. The Pogwagger’s manner suggested that Helga’s earlier comment had unsettled her.

  Helga’s fascination with the strange circumstances she shared with the Pogwagger, and her curiosity about the Pogwagger’s own story, made her pursue her earlier comment.

  “What a heap of trouble, danger, and disappointment we’d miss in life if everything went according to plan,” Helga chuckled, not exactly to the Pogwagger, but to no one else either. “Yes, there’s plenty of times I was lucky that the plan I’d made didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped—oh yes, sometimes it would’ve been better if I’d just stopped a bit short of what I’d planned, or thought it over a bit more before I started. Yes, indeed-deed, sometimes there’s a demon in the details of the fine plans we make.”

  “POGS—YOU VARMIT-FACED WOOD COW! YOU’D THINK A ROUNDIE LIKE YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND! POGS!” Roaring out the statement loud enough to wake beasts sleeping miles away, the Grizzly strained so hard against her bonds that Helga thought she’d tear a limb off trying to free herself.

  “Whoa, now, there friend,” Helga chuckled, “I didn’t mean to make you ill in your mind! I was just trying to see if you’d talk to me about what just happened to us.”

  “TALK TO YOU!” the Pogwagger exploded. “TALK TO A ROUNDIE—A DIRTY, LOW-DOWN POG-BOG FARMER? NO, I WILL NOT TALK TO YOU—I DISPISE YOU UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY. I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU!”

  A period of silence followed this, which Helga, taken somewhat aback by the unexpected outburst, made no effort to break immediately. After a few minutes, the Pogwagger’s agitation gradually decreased. When Helga judged that the Grizzly’s breathing was normal once more, she ventured another comment. “I ought to apologize for causing you anger,” Helga said, “yet, somehow I feel that I’m about to learn something from you, which I need to know.”

  Pausing to judge the effect of what she had said, and observing no indication that she was arousing the Pogwagger again, Helga continued. “I was unaware that you harbored ill feelings toward me when I spoke a while ago—but you have shown me that I have somehow harmed you. I would very much like to learn how that is.”

  “Pogs,” the Grizzly replied slowly, as if considering how many words to use. “You Roundies ruined the Pog-Bogs and have driven all us Pogwaggers to famine and want. You want a reason I hate and despise you—well, there you have it. If I were free I would hope to slit your gut from chin to toe. I should have done it when I had a chance, but I thought seeing you sold into slavery would be better.”

  This explanation sent Helga’s mind reeling. Pogs? Those little annoying frogs whose croaking in the Pog-Bogs kept everyone sleepless during the spring? Pogs? She was sitting here with a well-muscled Grizzly hoping to kill her, because of tiny frogs? How hard the Roundies had worked to drain the Pog-Bogs to open up more space for cornfields, potato patches, and carrot beds. And how soundly the Roundies slept, now that the Pogs were gone. The world was, indeed, a strange and uncertain place.

  “But, I’ve never seen a Pogwagger anywhere near the Rounds. I don’t even know anything about Pogwaggers—why, you’re about the first Pogwagger I ever saw. All I know is that you Pogwaggers live somewhere in the Drownlands,” Helga said. “What do Pogs in the Rounds have to do with you Pogwaggers living somewhere, far away, that I have no idea about?”

  “Our clans have lived in Open Wets of the Drownlands for generations,” the Grizzly replied, calming down somewhat, but still viewing Helga with disgust. “Our folk used to live by catching Waggers—a big lizard that feeds on full-grown Pogs. There’s two kinds of Pogs you have in the Rounds: female Pogs that come back to the Pog-Bogs to lay their eggs and die, and the young, newly-hatched Pogs—what we call Pog-Willies—the ones just a few weeks old. When Pog-Willies reach a certain size, they leave the Pog-Bogs and migrate to the Open Wets of the Drownlands. There, the Waggers feed on them, and our folk catch the Waggers—we eat them and use their skin, claws, and teeth for lots of things.” The Grizzly paused and gave Helga an especially harsh look. “That is, that’s the way it used to be—when there were still Waggers around.”

  “What do you mean, when there were still Waggers around,” Helga asked.

  “When you Roundies drained the Pog-Bogs, that was the end of the Pogs,” the Grizzly said in a cold, even voice. “And when the Pogs stopped coming to the Open Wets, the Waggers died off as well—no Pogs, no Waggers; no Waggers, and we Pogwaggers go hungry.” The Grizzly stopped and looked sadly away, as if visiting another place in her mind.

  “When I was a small beast,” she continued, “I lived in a bag-house—that’s a lizard skin tent—with my parents, my grandmother, my brothers and sisters, and, usually about 20 Waggers. Yep, we kept the Waggers in cages at one end of the tent and we lived at the other. Waggers are extremely hard to capture. Sometimes you’re having a good day and catch several—and that might be all you’ll be able to catch for weeks, so you want to keep them! Grandmother always kept a swamp grass fire burning in the middle of our bag-house. She would cook up a thick porridge of swamp cabbage, Wagger meat, and wild pumpkins in a large cauldron, and let it simmer all day. I swear, just the smell of that soup would drive me nearly crazy—it smelled so good!”

  The Pogwagger seemed to be in a reverie, transported in her mind to those days of her youth. After a time, she turned and look Helga dead in the eye, “But all of that is gone now—all gone now, vanished forever,” she said icily. “The Pogwaggers are scattered to the winds now—everyone scrabbling for some way to live. Our whole way of life is gone—destroyed—everything we had depended on the Waggers. Now we eke out a living as we can, or sit and sadly watch everything we knew fall apart. The young mostly leave and do anything they find to do, or get tempted into—like me and this scheme to steal some snakeskins and take some slaves to sell. But, as you said, that was a plan that should have stopped a bit shorter than it did.”

  A Prime Lot of Butter

  Helga and the Grizzly fell into silence as the Wrackshee flotilla continued its way downstream under the starry sky. Gradually, the gentle rocking of the boat lulled them to sleep. Neither one stirred from their peaceful sleep until they were jolted awake by the Wrackshee leader loudly giving commands. “Snuck’s Ear just around the next bend! Prepare to dock! Get the varmints ready for sale!”

  Blinking in the bright light of morning, Helga was unable to see what was happening on the river because of the gunwales. However, as the Wrackshee flotilla rounded the river’s bend, she could see that they were approaching a rocky wall with a huge chunk of rock sticking out in the unmistakable shape of a gigantic ear! Whisps of smoke curled around the ear, adding to the
weird sight.

  Helga gazed at the strange ear as the boats approached it. Drawing closer, she could see that, directly beneath the ear, a large cave opened to the river. Soon, the Wrackshee boats turned toward the cave and floated inside! Helga was surprised to find that the interior of the cave was smoky—a pall of smoke drifted slowly across the upper part of the cave, flowing toward the mouth of the cave. There the smoke escaped and snaked upward around the rocky ear outside.

  Helga was astonished to see what was obviously a trading post rising along one side of vast cave. Step-like terraces, carved out over eons as the curving flow of the river’s current carved out the cave and cut steadily deeper into the rock, provided a secure, albeit unlikely, foothold for habitation and commerce. The lively activity of the dimly-lit settlement was apparent even from where Helga sat chained to the gunwale.

  The Wrackshee boats moved toward shore, and soon Helga felt her boat bump against a landing pier. Instantly, Wrackshees were standing around her and the other captives, unlocking their chains. As Helga stood and stretched her cramped legs, she could see that other boats, canoes, and kayaks were scattered here and there along the bank, many tied up at the many gangways hanging out from merchant shops built to the very edge of the river. Rudely built and dirty, the entire place showed every sign of neglect and decay. The small metal gangways, although crowded with beasts going about their business, appeared so rusted and broken, as to be nearly beyond use.

  “Jump and form in line, you lazy varmints, or you’ll feel the bite o’ my lash! Get up, you! Over there—get in line. Get moving!” The tip of the Wrackshee’s whip cracked just beside Helga’s ear as she moved slowly into line. Wrackshees chained one prisoner’s right ankle to the left ankle of the beast behind, then back to the next one’s right ankle, then to the next one’s left, all the way down the line, making movement slow and difficult.

  Pushed roughly forward, cracks of the whip biting at their backs, the captives stumbled clumsily off the boat and stepped onto a rocky outcrop that served as the landing pier. Despite a slight cool cave breeze toward the cave entrance, smoke from dozens of lamps and hearths hung closely about the settlement, giving the air a damply burnt taste in Helga’s mouth as she breathed.

  Wrackshee guards, standing with throwing lances at the ready, motioned the captives toward the doorway a few steps down from the pier. On the door hung a signboard: Snuck Rasts and Brother, Grog and Butter.

  CRACK! “Keep moving, you Slime-Pots! Move!” CRACK! The lash cut into the Grizzly Pogwagger’s shoulder and she reared her head to protest. CRACK-SHMACK! Two more lashes cut her protest short.

  The captives stepped through the doorway into a sort of dingy groghouse with a counter and a few grimy tables. “HIZZZZ!” A huge ancient monitor lizard, dozing in front of a hearth, raised its head, and struggling to its feet, hissed at the captives. Its long gray tongue pushed out in weak spurts. Deeply-wrinkled, wizened skin hung in huge folds almost to the floor. “HIZZZZZ! HIZZZZ!” The old dragon opened its mouth in an attempt to show its fearsome array of teeth, but only succeeded in showing it was nearly toothless. “HIZZZZZ!”

  “Down, Pearl! Get Back! Lay down, you old wheezer!” a stocky, disheveled Boar commanded from behind the grog counter. “Here, take this and shut your trap!” said the Boar, reaching into a large jar of pickled mice sitting on the counter. He neatly flicked two pickled mice across the room smack into the monitor’s open gob. SNAP-SCHUMPT! The dragon caught the mice and swallowed them in a single gulp. Then, slowly blinking its large deep blue eyes at its master, its hissing subsided as it settled back down by the hearth.

  “There ya go, ya worthless critters! Ol’ Pearl won’t never harm ya—though she’s taken off a few legs and swallowed a few wee ones whole in her better days.” Patting the jar of pickled mice, the Boar continued, “Yessir, Pearl loves these little treats here and that’s about all she’s up to these days—now when she was in her prime, ya didn’t want to sit none to too close to her with yer boots off. Why, one time, she just snipped off one old Coyote’s toes who wiggled them a little too much by the fire. Not her fault ya understand—fool Coyote just tormentin’ her like that.” The scattered pikers and scalawags swilling grog at the tables guffawed, and seeing this pleasant diversion was at an end, went back to their gambling and talk.

  “Now then,” the Boar said jocularly, picking flecks of food from his huge yellowed tusks with a long skinning knife, “looks like you’ve got a bit of butter to sell, eh?” Coming out from behind the counter, he slowly walked past the line of captives, poking each one here and there with the point of his knife to test the firmness of muscle. “Yep, looks like some mighty fine butter—they’ll bring a lot on the trallé market at Port Newolf. Just step out back and speak with Snuck and his brother, why they’ll fix ya right up and y’ll be on yer way.”

  The Wrackshee guards motioned for Helga and the others to move through a door the Boar had opened at the rear of the groghouse. Stepping through the door, Helga and the others entered a dimly-lit warehouse with a low ceiling. Most of the room was stacked with crates, hogsheads, casks, and bundles of snakeskins. The room had an over-powering stench and Helga wished she could hold her breath. The naturally putrid smell of the Wrackshee guards now was mingled with a stale odor of sweating, unwashed beasts that hung in the air, although no other beasts were apparent beyond Helga her small group of fellow captives. Several long-decomposing barrels of spiced lizard guts leaked their contents into rancid puddles, adding their own gag-inducing stink. And, clinging to it all, the constant, oppressive stale smokiness.

  Coming in at the front of the line of captives, Helga noticed that a lone figure dominated this most unpromising scene. Beneath an oil lamp hanging on the wall, stood a lone, muscular Wolf—faintly green eyes glinting out of an immensely hairy face, red cap pulled tight on the head, coiled leather whip and short rapier tied at the belt—the characteristic features of a Norder Wolf slave trader!

  “Here ya go, Snuck, a prime lot of butter for ya,” the Wrackshee leader said, as the line of captives were herded toward the Wolf.

  “Yes, looks like a very good lot, indeed,” the Wolf replied.

  “Not a good bunch at all!” Helga said fiercely. “It’s a bunch that will sit on its haunches and not work a lick, nobody would want this pile of trouble, I assure you!” Helga yelled, straining against her bonds with all her strength.

  Ignoring Helga’s outburst, the Wrackshee continued, “A high-spirited, strong beast, as you can see. Exactly what is needed at Tilk Duraow.” Turning toward Christer, the Wrackshee said, “And this fine young beast has sound muscle and bone and a lively eye—shows real potential.”

  “Ain’t got no sense, no how,” Christer said stupidly, giving his most ignorant look to the Wolf. “Don’t know a lick about nothin’,” Christer went on, “don’t even know how to tie boot laces—and that’s the truth, fer sure.”

  “And his leg only works right when he’s got Wigger’s Salve to rub on his bum leg,” Helga added, pointing to the leg Christer was now rubbing, as if it pained him. “And the last bottle of Wigger’s Salve I ever saw was years ago—No sir, no way he’s fit to cut stones—why he’s so weak, both in leg and brain, not to mention lazy and shiftless, why he’d be a danger to all the rest of your slaves!” Helga complained, giving Christer a look of profound disdain.

  CRAAAAKKKK! A Wrackshee guard sent his lash down like a lightning bolt across Helga’s back. She winced but, instead of submitting, Helga threw a frenzied attack against the bonds that held her, dragging the entire line of captives this way and that as she tried to break free. CRAKKK! CRAKKK! The lash feel on her again and again, but with no effect, until at last she stopped. Breathing heavily, Helga yelled, “You’ll never make a slave of me—NEVER—and you’ll never take these other beasts into your hell-hole at Tilk Duraow either so long as I draw breath! You’ll never sleep a sound night’s sleep again so long as I’m alive!”

  “Very nice speech, Wood
Cow,” Snuck replied. “But, unfortunately, you are now, in fact, a slave and so are your friends. I’ll be staying right here, paying off your Wrackshee hosts, while my brother and his friends escort you to where you will join the other slaves. Then, why, there won’t hardly be time for you to blink and you’ll all be off for the slave works at Tilk Duraow—oh, except for you, that is.” Eyeing Helga slyly, the Norder Wolf continued, “Why, you’ve shown such strength and spirit—why, it was truly impressive the way you pulled things around! Just the kind of power and energy that they look for in Tilk Duraow runners! Yes, you’d be perfect for that!”

  At that moment, a large rough timber door swung open at the back of the warehouse. A second Norder Wolf appeared, accompanied by several dangerous-looking, long-tusked Rummer Boars. “Well, Snuck, looks like you’ve got some nice fresh butter there—we’ll be glad to take over now.”

  “O.K., you Slimeheads,” Snuck said, turning to the captives. “You just trot on over there by Bro-Butt—he’ll be your host from now on, until you get to Port Newolf.”

  There was involuntary, suppressed laughter among the captives at the mention of the second Norder Wolf’s name. Snuck turned and gave the prisoners an evil smile. “Yes, laugh away, Slimeheads. My brother is my Butter Trader, so I call him Bro-Butt. Find that humorous if you want—I won’t deprive you of the last laugh you’ll have for a very long time. What’s going to happen to you next won’t leave you laughing.”

  A Likely Tilk Duraow Runner

  Bro-Butt cracked the lash as he and the Rummer Boars drove Helga and the captives roughly through the large heavy door and onto a long stone passage descending into a dank, dimly-lit stairway leading downward through a tunnel in the rock. The stairway was narrow, requiring the beasts to move single-file, and was constructed merely by hewing rough footholds from the stone. Walking on the slippery surface was treacherous in the best of circumstances, but for chained beasts, it was especially difficult. A few of the Rummer Boars carried oil lamps to light the way. The burning oil wicks sputtered in the oppressive dampness of the tunnel, casting barely enough faint light for the beasts to see the steps they were taking. Otherwise, the tunnel was completely dark. Water dripped everywhere in the tunnel like a light rain shower and tiny rivulets ran down the walls—pooling on the steps, or running down the stairs in slow streams. As the beasts descended into what seemed an endless dark abyss, even Helga, brave and stout-hearted beast though she was, felt her heart race in the pitch blackness. The heavy, fearful breathing of the captives, with the constant backdrop of chains dragging across the rock, echoed in the tunnel—as if no other sound existed in the world.

  The passage descended in fits and spurts: going down steeply at times, leveling off at times, and climbing somewhat at times. The overall effect was to leave Helga unable to judge if their journey was generally downward or not. Helga was certain, however, of another unsettling observation. As the flickering light played across the wet yellow sandstone walls, Helga could see that the sandstone was flaking away in places. The constant dripping and erosion from small rivulets was slowly undermining its strength. Here and there, the constant erosion created and steadily enlarged holes and seams in the walls and roof of the passage. Walking along, chips and flakes of sandstone dropped with a “Plink” in the puddles, and at places, large rocks lay pell-mell or in piles where entire sections had fallen away. Helga felt certain that someday—how far in the future was anyone’s guess—the roof of the passage would collapse completely. The image of the tunnel collapsing into rubble added to the unsettling anxiety she felt as they continued through the dark, dripping passage.

  Fortunately, they were not long in descending the passage. Less than an hour, Helga judged, after they had begun their journey through the passage, a voice called out, “Hullo, my frippers! What’s the lark?”

  In the faint light of the oil lamps, Helga could make out the face of a snub-nosed, flat-browed Wolf floating just ahead in a rowboat.

  “Frippers hailing for a Butter Skimmer,” Bro-Butt replied. “Butter for the High One and a spit of grog for you.”

  The dangerous-looking Wolf, armed with an immense club, wore an ill-fitting uniform, which, in the darkness, made it look like his head was plopped on top of a shapeless mass. His small, pinched eyes, peering through spectacles, showed red in the lamplight. A leather helmet, perched precariously on his head, tilted so badly over his left ear that it threatened to fall off at any moment. The overall effect, Helga thought, was more ludicrous than sinister. But that calming assessment did not change the fact that she stood in a line of chained slaves, with whip-lashing thugs behind and a well armed Wolf in front.

  “Who on earth is that,” said Christer, stifling a laugh.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” one of the Pogwaggers replied. “That’s a Club Wolf sentry boat—one of the Norder Wolf patrols that keep unwanted notice away from their tidy little trade in slaves.”

  Bro-Butt pulled a small metal flask from his coat pocket and gave it to the Wolf, who took a couple of long draws, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his uniform, and belched. “BUUURRCHUTUP—BUZZCHUPTT!” Smiling happily, the Wolf put the cork back in the flask and dropped it into his uniform pocket. “How there, frippers! I’ll whistle you up a Skimmer, now there!”

  The Wolf gave a low, warbling whistle, which had hardly died away when—WHOOOSH! Just off-shore, pine knot torches were touched with a match and burst into flame. The sudden blaze of brilliant light came from a long, grimy barge gliding in from the lake.

  Helga’s eyes involuntarily winced at the sudden blaze of brilliant light, but she soon adjusted and was astonished at the odd-looking boat coming in to tie up. Two immense, rough-looking Wolves, each leaning on a ferry-pole, were guiding what appeared to be a filthy freight wagon made into a boat. Huge, oversized wagon wheels—perhaps 10-feet in diameter—made the boat seem smaller than it was.

  Each of the Wolves appeared to be about as thick through the chest as they were broad at the shoulders. Their exceptionally long noses pushed out amidst scraggly, matted, dirty beards that hid virtually every other facial feature. One of the Wolves, with a beard showing the deep reddish-tan of youth, stood near the right front of the skimmer. The other Wolf, poling the barge from the rear, had a greasy beard, iron-gray with age. Dressed in similar dingy blue shirts and butternut overalls, the Wolves’ rough, untanned lizard-skin belts held every kind of knife. Glistening-sharp hatchets hung from shoulder slings.

  “’Ow much butter ya got there, good Bro-Butt?” the iron-gray Wolf hailed as the barge landed.

  “Five, Stench—and every o’ of them muscle n’ not a lick o’ trouble,” Bro-Butt replied. “Well, that is, except for one,” he continued, pointing to Helga, “now that Wood Cow there, why, she’s born a likely Tilk Duraow runner! Why, the dragons’ll run like they’ve never run before with her as bait. She’s got blazes in her and when she lets loose—she’ll run like a mad beast!”

  “Yee-Gad! A Tilk Duraow runner!” Stench gloated. “What a fine lot o’ butter you’ve brought us this time, Bro-Butt! Yee-Gad! If the Dragon Boss really takes her for a runner, she’s worth a fortune!” Smacking his lips, the older Wolf looked Helga up and down with his wild, cunning eyes. “Yee-Gad! A Tilk Duraow runner in our very own skimmer, Reek! Why, think of it!” he laughed, snapping his fingers at the younger Wolf. “We never transported a runner before—it’s the cargo of a lifetime!”

  “Tam-Yap!” Reek snickered. “We may not have a lot of slaves to sell—like the crew of sea-beasts the Wrackshees just brought into the Butter Dock, but they don’t have a runner! I saw the whole crew of ’em and not a one of them that could run with the dragons.”

  “What sea-beasts?” Helga exploded. “What crew of sea-beasts are you talking about?” Helga, in a fury, struggled against her chains again, and again brought the lash down on her.

  “Quiet, Wood Cow!” Bro-Butt warned. “Too many more words out of you and you won’t get the chance to be a runner
. You’ll be sent straight to the Death Cliffs at Tilk Duraow. They go through a dozen stone-cutters a day—minimum.”

  Helga was not deterred, however. “What sea-beasts?” she demanded again. “What ship’s crew has been taken by the Wrackshees?”

  “Why that would be the Daring Dream,” Reek snarled. “A fine crew of strong, hardy beasts from the Far Aways. They’ll do fine as stone-cutters on the Death Cliffs—why the crew’s big enough to give probably a couple week’s supply—Har-Yat-Har!” he chuckled with a cruel smile.

  Several Rummer Boars set about pushing the captives to board the skimmer. The Rummers loaded the captives and tied them securely to poles that circled the skimmer’s deck. Once the captives were securely tied, the Rummer guards slumped down on the deck to rest and take a few spits of grog, while the Wolves poled the barge out onto the Ocean of Dreams. In a few hours, the skimmer would unload the slaves at the Butter Dock beneath Port Newolf. From there, the captives would join the other slaves awaiting sale. Soon after the slaves reached the Butter Dock, a Rummer Boar fleet was expected to arrive at Port Newolf, laden with trallés looted from the rich cargo ships plying the Great Sea.

   Trallés, huge high-domed tortoises, were highly-prized among the wealthy class as sporting mounts. Every rich trader and merchant had a stable full of the finest trallés that could be bought. All manner of mounted sports relied on trallés and no wealthy beast who yearned to be noticed in highest society could do without a first-class trallé stable. The bazaar in Port Newolf anxiously awaited the regular visits of the Rummer fleets. A pack of dubious merchants made vast fortunes trading in the shadows where trallés bought slaves to cut stone for the High One’s great project of building Maev Astuté. In the black trade of trallés and slaves where no one could be trusted, the High One’s rule was that no one got paid until all were paid. Rummer Boars were the sureties in this system—shepherding the flow of trallés and slaves through the dealers, and the gold into every waiting dark pocket along the way. When asked once about the line of work he was in, the greatest Rummer Boar of them all, Sabre Tusk d’Newolf, is reported to have replied, “Accounting—just say we’re accountants, keeping all the pluses and minuses correct and making sure everyone gets paid—including us! HAR-HAR-HAR!”

  Bro-Butt watched the loading work with a satisfied look. His pockets would soon be full of gold. Slaves delivered to the Butter Dock and the arrival of the Rummer fleet, would lead to various transactions in Port Newolf, all monitored in the efficient, thugging manner of the Rummers. When all was complete, Bro-Butt’s Rummers made their way back to Snuck’s Ear with payment for him and his brother. Ah, the delightful world of successful commerce! Smiling happily, Bro-Butt watched until the skimmer and its cargo had faded into the darkness of the Ocean of Dreams.

  Turning away from the Club Wolf drawing on his flask of grog, Bro-Butt picked up his oil lamp, and laughing gleefully at his success, headed into the passage leading back to Snuck’s Ear. “YAH-HAR-HAR—YAH-HAR-HAR-HAR!” In the stillness of the great cave, the rough laughter echoed back down the passage and across the Ocean of Dreams for several minutes. How much more the echo, when, sometime later, the passage collapsed upon him, an entire section of rock sliding forever forward, crushing everything in its way—forever sealing both his fate and the slaving passage from Snuck’s Ear to the Ocean of Dreams.

  Cargo for the Butter Dock

  There was a low rumble, the water around the skimmer began to jiggle frantically, and the barge began vibrating as if some giant unseen hand were shaking it. POP! CRACK! CRASH! KAAR-SPLOOOSH! Shaking violently, the skimmer tossed and rose up on waves that threatened to capsize the boat. A deafening noise reverberated in the closed confines of the cave—echoing and echoing again as the sound raced down unseen chambers and bounced back again and again.

  Aboard the skimmer, now some distance out on the Ocean of Dreams, Helga saw the flickering light of the oil lamps on the Club Wolf sentry boat disappear, as the entire rock face looming over the passage through which she had so recently passed, cracked and broke free. Visible for an instant in the flickering lamplight playing across the rocky chamber walls, Helga watched in shocked fascination as the rock slab toppled slowly outward, as if the mountain above was slowly turning its head to look at her. Then, a split second later, the rock slab fell free and a massive shower of debris completely buried anything familiar about the site. The thunderous sound of the collapsing rock made Helga think her head would explode from the shock wave. Huge waves, instantly splashing outward from the rock slabs slamming into the water, swamped the barge, soaking every beast on deck in the frigid water. In tandem with the soaking waves, a vast cloud of dust spread out over the Ocean of Dreams, shrouding the skimmer in a hideous, choking haze.

  Simultaneously, a choking cloud in the dust spread outward over the lake. Coughing and wheezing, knee deep in cold water, all the beasts on the half-submerged barge howled with dismay at the drastically altered situation in which they found themselves. To the good, the swamped, but sturdy skimmer was still afloat. And except for being soaked in freezing water, none of the beasts aboard was injured. On the bad side of things, it was unclear if the skimmer was of any further use and they were now in absolute darkness, the huge wave having drowned the lamps and the choking dust adding a feeling of oppressive dark.

  “LANDROLLERS, REEK! GO TO HIGHUP MODE!” Stench called out from the darkness. We’ll raise up the skimmer and drain ’er out! I know from poling that the water is shallow around here—not more than a maybe six or seven feet deep. That’s shallow enough to drain ’er out!”

  “Zero wrong, Stench!” Reek laughed, “I’d been thinking that your old brain was all made of dung! But you’ve got a good idea, this time.” Helga could hear Reek sloshing across the deck toward the center of the skimmer. Soon, amidst the coughing and sneezing caused by the dust, Helga heard the grinding-clanking of a set of gears going to work. Little by little, she noticed the barge seemed to be lifting up. Slowly, inch by inch, with every turn of some unseen crank Reek was turning, the skimmer rose higher and higher.

  “The water level is falling! What on earth is he doing?” Helga said to Christer excitedly. “Is that crank he’s operating?”

  “I don’t know what he’s doing,” Christer responded. “But somehow, he’s raising up the boat and the water is flowing out!”

  “Landrollers, Slime-Face.” Stench snarled out of the darkness nearby. “You don’t think Reek and I are gonna walk when the skimmer hits land, do you? We’ve got super-sized wagon wheels that can be cranked up and down—long as we’ve got good strong slaves to pull us, no place we can’t go!” Stench paused, then laughed harshly. “Har-Yet-Yet-Har! In highup mode with the wheels extended all the way, we can sit 20 feet off the ground if we want! Har-Yet-Yet-Har! And sure comes in handy for draining ’er out, too! Har-Yet-Yet-Har!”

  The skimmer lifted higher and higher. Although she could not see what was happening in the pitch darkness, she could hear Reek cranking furiously, some gears screeching, and timbers creaking as the skimmer rose. As the barge rose, Helga felt the water pouring off the flooded deck. Soon she was sitting, the water drained away, shivering in her soaked garments.

  “Now what?” Christer muttered, noticing several dim yellow haloes of light coming towards them. Helga’s eyes were scratchy as she peered through the fine dust hanging in the air, trying to see who or what was approaching. The lanterns of several Club Wolf sentry boats illuminated the skimmer as they converged at the troubled boat. 

  “Hallo, frippers,” a voice hailed, as one of the sentry boats pulled alongside. “Heard some fierce commotion and came to investigate. Tradin’ or trippin’ today? Call out your game.”

  “We’ve got cargo for the Butter Dock,” Stench called out, returning the hail. “Fresh butter for Tilk Duraow. We’re strong in our timbers and sound in our crew, but our wicks and lamps are drowned. Can’t see a blasted thing in this infernal haze. We’d be mighty pleasant if you’d
guide us to the Butter Dock.”

  “Chew the foot, frippers! Lights comin’ over!” Several lanterns were lit and handed to Reek, who reached over the side to bring them aboard.

  Reek hung the lanterns and the sentry boats pulled away from the skimmer. “Follow us,” one of the Club Wolf sentries called out. “We’ll see you into the Butter Dock in no time.” Moving across the lake, gradually the dust began to settle somewhat and it became easier to breathe. Little by little, Helga could see more of her surroundings in the lantern light.

  Weird shadows flickered across the haze-shrouded lake. As the skimmer followed the sentry boats, a fantastic menagerie of ghostly shapes appeared amidst the shadows, then faded away again. One after another, fantastic shapes flickered, ghostlike, in the haze for a few moments, and then, were replaced by others. It was as if the skimmer were threading its way through a labyrinth of grotesque alien worlds—or as if it sailed through an entire country of ruined villages, filled with stark blasted walls and huge broken buildings fallen into hideous shapes. What surely was a place of monstrosities and terror in good light became a sinister, haunting realm of nightmares in the hazy flicker of lantern light.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Helga said somewhat irritably to Christer, who was chuckling loudly next to her. “How can you laugh in a place like this?” she demanded, as his laughter increased in tempo.

  “HA-HA-HA-HO-HO-HO!” Christer guffawed. “HA-HA-HA—this is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time—HO-HO-HO! I haven’t thought about any of this stuff in years! HA-HA-HA! This is just too funny!” Christer was laughing so hard that his large bulk shook wildly.

  “What on earth has gotten into you?” Helga asked irritably. “What are you laughing at?”

  “Please, Helga,” Christer blubbered through his roaring laughter, “please, it’s just seeing that idiot Sam tickling Miss Frightful—HA-HA-HA!—at least that’s what we called her—she was our teacher when—HO-HO-HO-HA-HA-HA—when we were wee beasts!”

  “But where are they?” Helga asked in exasperation. “I can’t see anything!”

  “Some of the rocks look just like Sam and Miss Frightful—looks like Sam is tickling her! HA-HA-HA! I haven’t thought about that in years, but the rocks remind me of it. HO-HO-HO! Oh this is too much—and over there’s that hilarious dream I once had where I was riding a bat!”

  “That’s why they call it the Ocean of Dreams,” Reek commented. “The weird shapes here grab your mind and make you see things—if you can dream it, you can see a rock formation that resembles it! Hard to believe, but true. Every dream or nightmare you’ve ever had might come back to you here—they kind of reach out and just grab your mind. It’s really eerie at first, but the more trips you make through here, you get used to it.”

  Christer gradually calmed down and his laughter settled into irregular, low guffaws as some new image leaped to mind amidst the rocks. Helga, however, was startled by what she saw in the formations. It seemed to her that she and her mother, Helbara, were back on that ill-fated river, years before, with Wrackshees closing in. There was her mother going off to meet the Wrackshees—protecting Helga who was hidden in a hollow tree—how could it be that these rocks were so realistic? It was as if she were there exactly as it was.

  “HA-HA-HA!” Christer’s laughter snapped Helga back to the present. “What is the matter with you!” she yelled. “How can you laugh at time like this?”

  “Why not,” Christer replied with a grin. “Why spend the last days of my life weeping and wailing, rather than laughing and singing? We are bound off to be worked to death—why not laugh in the happy memories of the old days that come to mind? And…,” he paused and looked at Helga, “isn’t it good for me to laugh and rejoice now, being in the company of the prettiest Wood Cow I ever laid eyes on?”

  Helga blushed at this unexpected turn of the conversation. “You are an absolute loonie, Christer! A nut-case!” Helga laughed, recovering herself. “Now what good does that comment do you? I don’t have the slightest interest in returning the compliment.”

  “Oh, a saucy and cheeky sort, to boot!” Christer said, smiling.

  “Not at all,” Helga replied, “I just don’t compliment beasts acting like complete idiots.”

  “Then we are a pair,” Christer chuckled, “because it’s clear you don’t have a particle of good sense.”

  “Well, I never heard the equal to that!” Helga laughed, despite herself.

  “Now don’t get me wrong,” Christer said with another chuckle, “I don’t claim to be your equal—why the world would be a fearsome place if there were two of us like you!”

  “If you want to see me being fearsome,” Helga growled with a smile, “you just keep up your being a silly humbug—when we are in desperate trouble and getting worse by the minute—look over there!” She pointed through the hazy light. A dock was coming into sight in the half-light.

  The quay appeared to be deserted, but as the skimmer approached, a cry from a sentinel—“Ranks and swords! Troops forward!”—sounded ominous. Although a glimmer of daylight—could it actually be daylight, Helga wondered?—seemed to filter down from some unseen opening to the outside, it was difficult to distinguish the entire outline of the quay and its surroundings, due to the dim light and the almost malignant air that caused her eyes to water.

  Helga struggled not to gag as her lungs filled with pestiferous odors. To breathe the vapors swirling around the skimmer as it came into dock seemed to carry feelings of melancholy and loneliness deep inside a beast. Through the swirling vapor, the sounds of heavily-booted running feet and further charges and commands seemed sad and forsaken. Christer noticed the effect also and immediately his jesting ceased.

  A drawbridge clanged down to the skimmer and a running troop of heavily-armed Skull Buzzards rushed up the drawbridge and took up stations in two columns lining the drawbridge, razor-sharp swords drawn and at the ready.

  Join the Crew of the Daring Dream

  “Stand up and get moving!” Stench commanded roughly, pushing Helga and the other captives toward the quay.

  A stoutly-built, but flabby Wolf stepped out of the shadows, taking his place at the end of the dock, where the rows of Skull Buzzards ended. The Wolf’s florid face shone with oily perspiration as he leaned on his thin cane. Tapping his hightop boot on the dock, he waited impatiently for the captives to unload.

  “Hallo, there, now! Step it up! Pipe the Butter, Fetor!” the Wolf called angrily. “The Butter Dock is packed jowl to elbow and most of them are near moldy and rotten! We’ve been a-waitin’ days for this load! We gotta get moving!”

  A second Wolf, one-eyed, completely bald on top of his head, and so short and stubby that he hardly reached the waist of the other, stepped forward. Despite his pint-size, Helga could see that he had a king-size attitude as he walked down the line of Skull Buzzards. An evil smirk played across his crooked mouth as he licked drool from his lips and spat it on the polished boots of the Skull Buzzard Commander as he passed by. Reaching the line of captives, he raised a flute to his lips and began playing a marching tune. As the group of captives followed the piper between the Skull Buzzards, the Buzzards swatted each captive on the backside with the flat of their swords, keeping time with the music.

  For their part, Stench and Reek smiled at the successful unloading of yet another cargo of butter for the High One. “Ah, ’tis such a shame about Bro-Butt, ain’t it Reek?” Stench said with feigned sorrow.

  “Aye and Alas, Stench—a mighty terrible pity, ’tis, and that’s the truth. Why, no more butter slidin’ through that tunnel ever again, I’d reckon. Looks like we’re outta business on that way a doin’ things. Yep, ’tis a most terrible, awful shame. Boo-Hoo and Hoo-Boo.” Reek pulled an exaggerated face and let out a small sniff as if he were crying.”

  “Now don’t you go bawlin’ like some little tyke, Reek,” Stench chuckled. “Why, now that we’re done sobbin’ over Bro-Butt, and we’ve got all this gold in our poc
kets, I think we ought to just step on upstairs into Port Newolf and look around for some new pickin’s. I’m thinkin’ we might want to buy up some fine trallés and run a caravan out into the Norder Wolf Estates. I hear those wealthy Norders will pay outrageously for a top trallé—one good run with trallés, and we could be sittin’ pretty for a long time.”

  Reek’s head bobbed in agreement and the two set about securing their skimmer to the quay. “Tie ’er up tight there, Reek. We’ll go up to the Port and buy us a few slaves and a load of trallés, then come down here and get the skimmer. With the Landrollers, we’ll ride right along in style while the slaves pull us along and carry the trallés. Yes, sir, it will be a fine new business for us.”

  Having secured the skimmer, Reek and Stench walked up a long ramp running upward to the left of the quay. In a few minutes, they walked out into the bright sunlight of Port Newolf. Stopping briefly at the Skull Buzzard checkpoint, they then stepped out into the thriving port to seek their new line of work.

  Helga and the other captives, however, were conducted down a long, broad train of stone steps leading away from the quay in the opposite direction, Fetor in front, piping away, and lines of Skull Buzzards to each side, swatting away with their swords. Despite the sting of the swords slapping her on the rear, Helga had to admit that the melody of the flute, while played poorly, was at least helped musically by the strong backbeat of the sword swats.

  In just a few steps, the troop descended into a dingy, stinking chamber. Two massive iron doors, at least seven inches thick, stood open to admit them, with Skull Buzzard guards to each side. Helga gasped at what she saw: dozens of beasts standing nearly knee deep in water, each chained to rusty iron rings attached to the ceiling! Sea-beasts crowded together, packed on top of one another, pressed into the dismal, flooded, suffocating stench of unwashed bodies and molding clothes—Helga nearly screamed at the sight! Not a single breath of fresh air moved in the dreary chamber. Only beasts with hearts of steel could possibly endure in such a place.

  “Welcome to the Butter Dock, Slime-bags,” Fetor announced. “Step right in and join the crew of the Daring Dream—they’ve been awaiting your arrival.” Fetor laughed, then continued, “But don’t get too comfortable because you won’t be here long. As soon as we get these lazy scum ready to go, we’ll be heading for Tilk Duraow.”

  “You know of Tilk Duraow, I suppose?” Fetor asked with sly sarcasm. “Perhaps its considerable fame has reached your ears? Ah, yes, that great, magnificent, wide open, yawning abyss—that miraculous, glorious bottomless pit, from which come the precious stones to build Maev Astuté! How could your heart not burn to cut those stones?” A malignant smile played across Fetor’s odd crooked mouth, dripping with a constant flow of drool.

  “Just imagine with me the immense iron buckets forever passing up and down on their rattling, clanking chains! The creaking and groaning of gears and pulleys! Ah, the music of it! And think of the armies of beasts like yourselves—working on those vertical walls of stone, nearly a thousand feet from base to top—reduced to the appearance of ants crawling upon the massive walls. Some crawl across those wondrous walls on spider-web like ropes; others on ladders lashed together many dozens of feet in length, warped by the distance—Oh! What a joy! And especially for those lucky beasties clinging to the blasting baskets!  Hear them hammering, ‘Tap-Tap-Tap,’ as they drive an iron bolt into the solid rock to make a cavity for blasting powder! Then, who sets the powder and lights it? Why the beastie on the basket!!! Quickly now, light it, and, Heave Ho, get them out of the way! Maybe! HA-HA-HA-HO!”

  Fetor paused, slowly wiping drool off his chin, brow furrowed, as if remembering something. “Ah, yes, I almost forgot—everyone gets to enjoy the blessings of Tilk Duraow. The female Wood Cow has been chosen to be a Tilk Duraow runner—so she won’t be going with you.” The Wolf turned to the Skull Buzzards and said, “You two take the Wood Cow to Norder Crossings—but watch her closely, I can see she’s a pack of trouble if you take your eyes off her—Heh-Heh-Heh—which is exactly why she’ll make a good runner.”

  “I am not willing to allow her to go!” Christer exploded. “I demand to go in her place!”

  “Willing, you say?” Fetor said, bemused. “The question is whether I am willing, my dear fellow, and, sad to say for your hopes, I am not willing to accept your offer of service.”

  “You are nothing but a bald, musically untalented tyrant,” Christer remonstrated.

  “It will be wiser not to criticize my music,” Fetor warned with a sarcastic tone. “Beasts with their feet in the chains I own do not have a very good record of correcting my playing—or in opposing me in any other way. I suggest you just settle down and enjoy the walk to Tilk Duraow.”

  “And if I should refuse that kind offer?” Christer asked.

  “In that case, I’m afraid I might have to prevail on your young female friend here to help me make you more reasonable,” the Wolf replied.

  The icy note of warning in Fetor’s response was not lost on Christer. Glancing helplessly at Helga, he said, “Believe me, Fetor, I will do as you say, but only that I may one day hope to see you splattered across the rocks of your precious Tilk Duraow. Mark my words.”

  A Dragonwacker’s Work

  Rain at Norder Crossings was never normal. At Norder Crossings it rains like a dam has broken and the lake dumps on the unfortunate beasts below. But this time the rains were especially bad. Rivers were so swollen that caravans could not cross. Bridges were destroyed. Roads washed away. The very important monitor train to the Hedgelands was so long delayed that many merchants and traders were facing ruin. When at last the sun shone after weeks of rain, every merchant in town was in the market square at dawn, pushing and haggling for all he was worth. Everyone was making up for lost time; each moment precious.

  Ankle-deep water still filled the streets in some places. Colonel Snart, Monopole of the caravan, slogged along, making final checks of the monitors being loaded.

  “That knot won’t get any tighter if you pull on it another week,” he fumed as a weary Wolf fumbled to secure the ropes holding packs in place on a monitor’s back. “Give it to me! I’ll pull it tight—you get over there and help Raskin load those barrels on the wagon. You pull your weight you bumbling idiot, or you’ll be carrying packs just like the monitors.” The tired, cold Wolf bowed to the Monopole and backed away with head bowed.

  “We pull out in an hour!” Colonel Snart yelled after the Wolf, loudly enough to be heard all along the line of beasts working feverishly to load the monitor train. “Any more delays and we’ll miss the last of the Trading Days—if that happens, more than a few of you will be breaking rock at Tilk Duraow!”

  The impact of the threat was immediate. All along the line beasts increased the speed of their frantic efforts to ready the monitor train for departure. No beast wanted to be sentenced to the slave-works at the Granite Hulks of Tilk Duraow. There, slaves broke and cut rock that was used to build the great castle of Maev Astuté. It was dangerous, often deadly, work. A troublesome beast could easily find himself swinging in a rickety basket at a dizzying height above the ground sawing huge pieces of granite loose. Without warning, chunks could break away and knock the unfortunate beast to the rocks far below. It was an unpleasant business.

  Slurrp! Slosht! “Ahhhh, that’s better.” Coming from behind him, the sound caught the Monopole’s attention. A young Wolf sat on the open tailgate of a wagon pouring water out of his boots and wringing water out of his soaked trouser legs. Seemingly unaware that anything was amiss in what he was doing, the good-humored Wolf hummed a song as he tried to dry himself.

  Oh the rains are wet and me boots overflow—

  A-me-a-my-hum-me-de-me

  Me field’s awash and I’m growin’ gills—

  Alas, me potatoes are drownin’

  A-me-a-my-hum-de-me-de-me—

  KA-CHUNK! Colonel Snart whacked the Wolf across the head with the blunt end of his pike.

  �
�Get on with it!” the Monopole screamed at the poor, confused Wolf. “Load the packs, you empty-brained sluggard!”

  “Now, I’ll be beggin’ your pardon, lord,” the Wolf replied. “I’m not bound to your cargo, nor likin’ the thanks you gave me for my business. I’m a farmer, not your personal puncher-beast. I bought my goods from Mr. Peets, as I assume you’d be glad I did as he pays your wages. So, I’ll be pleased if you’d leave off with beatin’ on me head!”

  “Get your sluggard bottom off of my wagons, if you’re not a caravan beast,” Colonel Snart responded coldly. “That will be my thanks for your business—you’d best be thanking your own good luck that I did not split your skull. Mr. Peets’ affairs are Mr. Peets’ affairs—and as there’s no other place to buy what you need, I’m sure you’ll be keeping your complaints to yourself. Now, move your sluggard bottom off of my wagon.”

  Despite the angry words and ill-treatment, the good-natured Wolf smiled as he pulled on his boots. Shouldering his pack, the Wolf farmer picked up his walking staff and moved away from the monitor train. Pausing just before he turned a corner and went out of sight, he called back, “At the end, you know, we all end up at Tilk Duraow. See you there.” Then, he was gone.

  The Wolf’s curious comment left puzzled looks on the faces of every beast that heard it, except for Colonel Snart. The color drained from the Monopole’s face and he leaned on his pike, breathing heavily. Sudden dizziness had come over him and he struggled to stay upright, gasping for breath. Looking strangely pale and shaken he wobbled off, muttering. “Wheesh...gashp...wheesh...not Tilk Duraow for me...you’re a lying beast...wheesh...”

  Colonel Snart staggered a few steps beside the caravan before stumbling heavily against a huge monitor being loaded by one of the Dragonwackers. Grabbing frantically to keep from falling, the Monopole caught hold of the heavy rope lashings, stopping his fall.  The Wolf had hardly touched the monitor’s pack-harness when the beast lunged violently to the side, toward the Colonel, hissing ferociously and snapping its massive jaws.

  “AYYYYAWWWWH!” Colonel Snart yelled in startled surprise as the lizard’s jaws—filled with two-inch, razor-sharp teeth—snapped shut, catching the edge of the Colonel’s coat-sleeve tightly within them. With a turn of his powerful head, the monitor jerked the Monopole toward it, making the next snap of the jaws certain to bloody Colonel Snart himself. The monitor’s horrid-smelling breath—said to be the worst odor anywhere—shot out in huge putrid gusts. Pulled off balance by the monitor’s jerk, Colonel Snart’s face dropped directly into the stream of loathsome breath. Gagging at the vile stench, the Monopole’s stomach churned and he felt as if he would pass out—the usual next step for a beast falling prey to a monitor attack.

  The Dragonwacker reacted instantly to the danger. Leaping on top of the monitor’s wide head, he began jumping up and down, pounding the lizard on the head with his heavy boots. “Torff ta Mit! Salamy! Torff ta Mit!” the Dragonwacker yelled, giving commands to the monitor.

  Slowly the giant lizard calmed down and, after a few more jumps on its head, the fearsome creature released its bite on the Monopole’s coat. Slick, gooey-looking drool glistened in heavy globs on the Colonel’s clothing where the monitor’s bite had ripped away much of the arm of his coat.

  “Den’t ya tetch the druul,” the Dragonwacker warned. “It’s wers’na bite of th’a dragen hir’silf! Here ser, drep’it ceat in th’a buckit. Thi’n I’ll be burn’it fer ya.”

  The Colonel heeded the warning, carefully removing his coat and handing it over to be burned. Every beast he had ever known that had been bitten by a monitor had died. Monitor bites were not poisonous, but as their stinking breath suggested, their filthy mouths were filled with all manner of loathsome bacteria. A “fortunate” beast that survived a monitor bite and escaped soon saw his fur falling out and the skin rolling up all around the wound. The deep slashing bite wounds always became badly infected. It was rare for a beast with a monitor bite to survive more than a day or two.

  “Luuk here, Mastir, ya git car’liss like that again—rip-snap-gulp, and ya’re a mimery. Ya’s b’in ri’und ta dragins ling eni’ugh ta kniw ta dangir. What’s git inta ya’s skull? Ta dragin’s billy din’t hild ta niceties i’ rank. Ya’s just pewirful lucky that ta meni’ters have just had tar’s li’ading mi’al—ya kniw that mak’s thim sli’ipy and sluggish fir a few hours. But din’t be fuuled—ya disturb tar’ napping, like ya did, and th’a doin’t like it ine bit. Ya act like a thickwit again and ya wen’t bi sa lucky—mark my werds!”

  No one could explain why the Wolf farmer’s comment had so affected the normally powerful and confident Monopole, although it was the subject of many whispered conversations as the caravan beasts worked.

  Fifty-four monitors yoked in teams of two made up the caravan, connected one-after-another in a train. Carefully loaded to carry the maximum burden, each monitor had two packs of equal weight, and as similar in bulk as possible. The packs were lashed securely to sturdy wooden frames placed across the backs of each monitor team to further balance the load.

  The monitors themselves took neither food nor water during the journey. Immediately before being yoked and loaded, the monitors were fed an immense meal. Huge hunks of shark were thrown into the monitor pens and a greedy frenzy took place as the monitors gorged themselves. The gruesome spectacle served the purpose of temporarily making the vicious creatures docile and sluggish.

  As the feeding frenzy subsided, Dragonwackers lead the sleepy beasts to the caravan loading area and yoked up the teams. Then loading proceeded rapidly while the sluggish beasts dozed. Once the monitors’ stupor wore off, the caravan had to depart immediately. Once awake, the Dragons began looking for their next meal—and the ready scent of the Tilk Duraow runner at the head of the caravan was the means of getting the caravan moving.

  A Rebel, an Untamed One

  “She’s a likely looking runner,” the Monopole commented, “I’ll raise you ten.”

  “Don’t let the strong looks of her legs turn your brain upside down,” Mudpot replied. “She’s a Wood Cow—strong as you like, and looks to be fast, that’s for sure—but a rebel to the bone.  She’ll be fighting the rope every step of the way. We’ll start with her, but mark my words—we’ll be replacing her before we make the Steep Crossing, and not because the Dragon’s get her either! This one’s a fighter like we’ve not seen in a long time. Them type’s get their freedom. You keep raising your bet and all you’re doing is giving me your money.” The Dragon Boss laughed. “So, come on, Colonel—raise me as you please!”

  Colonel Snart considered the coin he was about to throw on the ground in front of Mudpot. As was their custom in the last few minutes before a Dragon Train left Norder Crossings on its passage to the Hedgelands, the Monopole and the Dragon Boss made bets about the likely fate of the various Tilk Duraow runners. Sometimes several runners were needed to complete the caravan passage to the Hedgelands—but now their attention was focused on the Wood Cow that Mudpot had selected to be the lead-off runner.

  Mudpot, a jet black Weasel, was Boss of the Dragonwackers and a good judge of the runners condemned to lead the Dragon Trains. He had seen many a runner win freedom in the so-called ‘Feast or Freedom’ run—and many more end up as chow for the monitors. The Monopole, on the other hand, had never ridden a single mile with the Dragonwackers. The dirty, dangerous business of ‘running the Dragons’ repulsed him, although he liked the profits of the ‘tidy little trade’ as he called it.

  “She can run like the wind,” the Monopole declared, throwing a coin on the cobblestone street before Mudpot. “A successful run of the Dragons requires speed, not obedience,” he continued. “It is your job to make sure she cannot escape. We are wagering on her speed and endurance, not your watchfulness and brains—if we were wagering on your care and intelligence, I would not be betting so much,” Colonel Snart laughed. “So long as you have her in a strong harness, so that she cannot break away, her only safety from th
e monitors is speed and endurance. She will be running for her life, not plotting an escape.”

  So saying, he tossed another coin on the ground, casting a sarcastic grin in the direction of the beast being wrestled into a harness at the front of the monitor train. A crew of three burly Dragonwackers struggled to subdue and harness the thin and wiry Wood Cow. Groping for the harness fastenings, one of the Dragonwackers slipped on the muddy cobblestones and went down in a murky puddle. “FUUL! Cursi ya, Trash Cow!” the Dragonwacker yelled as he picked himself up, muddy water dripping from his leggings.

  “Never mind the cursing,” Mudpot said, “it’s not words, but muscle that wins the day in this business.” Stepping forward, he added his force to the job of containing the wildly resisting beast. Taking a small key from his pocket, he locked the clasp that secured the chain harness.

  “She’s powerful strong, that’s for sure,” Mudpot observed, returning to where Colonel Snart waited. “There’s no question about her endurance—but that gold-red sparkle in her eyes bears watching. She’s a rebel, an untamed one. She’s got more than speed. She’s got a will to break free—that’s what makes her a good runner. But it also puts the will of a demon in our midst. If she does not slip her harness or destroy us, this will be the fastest run of the dragons ever.”

  “Speed is a risk,” the Monopole agreed, “but that cannot be helped. These infernal rains have put the caravan weeks behind. We will all be ruined—I will be ruined—if the monitor train does not make a fast crossing to the Hedgelands. The traders are like a pack of hounds at my back. If the caravan does not make the passage before the trallé traders have left, the Norder Crossings merchants will replace me as Monopole. Speed is a risk—but slowness is a bigger risk.”

  Colonel Snart tossed a handful of coins at Mudpot’s feet. “There—that’s my wager on this runner, Mudpot,” he said. “My future as Monopole rides on the success of this run of the dragons. If I must bet my future and my fortune on the spirit of a demon, so be it.”

  Mudpot bowed before the Monopole and scooped up the coins.

  The key to a successful run of the dragons to the Hedgelands was speed. Once the monitor caravan was loaded and the monitors were fully awake again, the monitor train had to make the passage between Norder Crossings and the Hedgelands before the monitors grew ravenously hungry again. A skilled Dragon Boss knew precisely how to make the run to the Hedgelands with great speed. Mudpot was the best of them all. Stuff the monitors with shark, load while they dozed, then as they began to stir, set a swift—and tasty-smelling—runner at the front of the caravan. For the runners it was a chance to escape the fate of the slave works at Tilk Duraow. As the runner ran for life and freedom, the monitors raced after the scent of their next meal. The faster the runner, the faster the caravan traveled. If the runner was fast and strong enough to endure the grueling race, he or she might stay just ahead of the monitors all the way to the slave works and win freedom. Runners that faltered or stumbled became an impromptu snack for the monitors. A Dragon Boss wanted the fastest, strongest runner possible. A failed runner meant delay and other problems as the lead monitors snacked, and then turned sluggishly sleepy—while the rest grew dangerously restive. The delay could be even longer if replacement runners turned to “shakes and gibbers”—quivering piles of terrorized flesh unable to stand, let alone run. When “shakes and gibbers” struck it could hold up a Dragon Train for days while new runners were brought from Norder Crossings.

  Godgie Stomp

  As the monitor train departed, Helga, the Tilk Duraow runner in the lead, moved out fast, staying a healthy 2-3 feet ahead of the lead monitors. Snorting, hissing, long forked tongues flicking rapidly, claws clicking over the stones; the monitors rushed madly along at Helga’s heels. Despite their stubby legs, the monitors scuttled after her with surprising speed. Many an unfortunate beast had learned—too late—that monitors had lightning speed. 

  The monitor train moved fast over the well-constructed caravan road, stopping for nothing. Mudpot, hunched forward in the Dragon Master’s seat above and behind the lead monitors, cracked a long whip furiously, urging them to the greatest possible speed. The reckless fury of the Dragon Master sent the monitor train weaving and lurching forward like an untamed wind.

  “TEEA-CHT! YAHT! YAHT! TEEA-CHT! FLY YA SLITHER-BOBS! FLY! YAHT! YAHT” The long lash curled again and again, whistling through the air above the monitors before cracking loudly—just nicking the tail of each monitor on alternate lashes. The monitor train flew wildly down the road, rattling and clattering, careening around corners and sweeping through villages and towns—scattering beasts in the road to the right and left as they dived to safety.

  The noise of an approaching monitor train emptied the streets of villages long before the monitors actually ran through. Mothers pulled their wee beasts away from the windows and slammed the shutters tight. Mudpot’s constant cries of “TEEA-CHT! YAHT! YAHT! TEEA-CHT!” mingling with the fearsome hissing and blowing of the monitors at the runner’s heels could give wee ones nightmares for many a day. And no beast wanted to be bitten by a monitor or, worse, lunch for the monstrous lizards. “PASS AWAY YAS’T FLEA-PICKERS! YAS’T BE OUTTA THE WAY OR YA’LL BE DRAGON FOOD! TEEA-CHT! YAHT! YAHT!”

  Yet, as the monitors raced past, creating a terrifying spectacle with their hissing and Mudpot’s profane yells filling the air, even the mothers who frantically shielded their children peeked through cracks in the shutters. Frightened though they were, there was a fascinating attraction in the terrifying spectacle passing by.

  The only thing a runner was supposed to do was run for life itself—and Helga ran as she had never run before. Mile after mile she sped along as if in an unbroken series of all-out sprints. Gasping, flushed, pumping the air with her arms—swilling a little saliva around in her dry mouth as if it were water—the hot breath of the monitors just at her rear. She stumbled at times, but never broke stride. It was twenty-three miles to the Hedgelands and only a wild-beast’s dash could save her.

  At intervals along the caravan route, specially built water towers spewed wide streams of water across the road for twenty yards. Passing under these ‘water spits’ cooled off the monitors and the runner and let them get a drink without stopping. As the caravan plunged straight through the falling water, monitors flicked their tongues, pulling in water, and Helga tilted her head back to catch water in her mouth as she ran—and the dragon train splashed on without breaking pace.

  Immediately after the second water spit, the caravan route cut through a range of steep hills. Gasping and blowing, arms pumping furiously, straining at her harness, Helga labored up the steep ascents and descents, desperately working to keep up the pace. A creeping fear grew within her that even the fearsome terror of the dragons hissing just behind her could not keep her going much longer. She knew that one of two things could happen. She could slow her pace and rest. That was suicide. She could keep running. That might be only postponing the inevitable.

  “Please Ancient Ones”—the ragged words came out in gasps, “Help me—I must not stop. Help me run and run and run…” In Helga’s fear-laced imagination, the hissing of the monitors always seemed to draw nearer, nearer, nearer...Nearly delirious with pain and fatigue, she panted the same words with each breath: “run, run, run, run...” 

  At last the caravan route left the steep, deeply cut land behind and the road broke out onto the Godgie Stomp Flats—a broad rocky plain, with scrubby vegetation, bordered by high mountains. Unlike the deep canyons and ravines that had just been passed, the broad slightly rolling plain was mostly level. In the distance, off to the left, a curious cloud of dust was rising from just beyond a slight rise in the land, sufficient to hide its source. It was moving fast, like a fire spreading rapidly toward the caravan route. Despite the urgency of her frantic flight, the distant rising dust cloud had an uneasy fascination. There could be no doubt that the dust cloud was moving rapidly toward the dragon train. There also could be no doubt
that something remarkable—stupendous—must be causing it. Whatever it was, Helga could easily see that the path of the dragon train would intersect the course of the dust cloud in a matter of minutes.

  The caravan could not easily alter its motion, despite Helga’s growing apprehension. And, of course, a halt would be certain death for her. Frantic terror kept her plunging forward. Gradually a curious clacking rumble joined the sound of her ragged, gasping breath, the pounding of her feet on the road, and the clattering, hissing caravan trailing behind her. Casting brief fascinated glances toward the dust cloud as she ran, an astonishing sight gradually unfolded before Helga’s eyes.

  Mudpot had also heard the eerie sound and seen the rising dust long before the source came into view. He knew immediately what it was. “Godgie Stomp!” he cursed silently to himself. “Godgies running! Stomp coming!” As a slight tremble ran across his hardened face, a huge frenzied herd of Godgie lizards surged into sight over the rise that had previously hidden its advance. Tens of thousands of Godgies were running pell-mell toward the road at terrific speed. “Godgies stomping!” Mudpot yelled. “We’re lost! We’ll be sliced to ribbons! We’ll be chopped to bitsy pieces by their claws!” But there was little that could be done. Mudpot’s yells seemed swallowed within the increasing roar of thousands of claws clacking across the rocky ground.

  Against the eerie sound that was rapidly increasing to a terrific roar, Helga kept doggedly on in her race for life. One glance at the onrushing horde of Godgies told Helga there was no escape for the caravan. As far as she could see, the plain was dark with the streaming horde of onrushing Godgies. It was as if a massive ocean wave were coming and there was no escaping. She could stop and be torn to pieces within moments by the monitors at her back or keep running in the hope the Godgies might turn aside at the sight of the monitor train.

  The dragon train route crossed the path of the annual Godgie migration to their nesting grounds. Godgie lizards—long, sleek, and capable of incredible speed—weighed only about four pounds. The free-spirited Godgies usually lived apart as loners or in small bands. But in the annual migration to the nesting grounds, they joined in herds of tens of thousands—sometimes as many as 200,000 in a single herd. The migrating herds bolted across the Flats at a frenzied pace. There was no food on the Godgie Stomp Flats so the herds crossed rapidly to reach the nesting grounds on the other side.

  The running of the monitor trains usually avoided the annual Godgie Stomp, but the long rains this year had delayed the caravans far too long. As soon as the rains stopped, Mudpot ran out his monitor train, hoping to beat the first herds of the Stomp. It was running a risk to cross now, but financial ruin was the alternative. Waiting until the final stomping herds had passed would delay the caravan for several more weeks. It was a gamble that the Dragon Boss and Monopole had taken and the gamble had now been lost. As Mudpot watched the vast Godgie herd descending upon his caravan, he knew the caravan was doomed.

  Racing toward the monitor train, tens of thousands of Godgies swarmed in a maddened surge across the plain. Gooodg-Oog-looo! Oog-Oog-looo! The low “goooodg-oog-looo” calls of the surging Godgies, combining with the clacking claws of the advancing multitude, ripped the air with a surreal unbroken thunder. Although the Godgies were relatively small, the vast stampeding herd caused the earth to fairly tremble.

  As the leading edge of the Godgie horde closed on the monitor train, Mudpot could see the gleaming yellow eyes and rapidly flicking tongues of those in the front rank. The great mass of rushing lizards followed the leaders at the front and the leaders followed ancient instinct. Whether the leaders were actually leading the surging herd or being pushed by the unstoppable pressure from behind did not matter.

  When the flood of lizards hit the caravan, the Godgies streamed over and through the monitor train as if it were just another part of the landscape. Hissing and twisting violently as the Godgie’s claws raked across their backs and heads, the monitors lashed out with their jaws. Straining at their harness, they broke free and all-out bedlam ensued.

  Mudpot, at the center of the dust and chaos, was overrun and knocked to the ground by the frenzied jumping and skittering herd. A shower of sand and gravel kicked up by the Godgies’ feet pelted Mudpot in the face. Any vision of the horizon or the sky lost beneath the endless, ever-widening waves of Godgies, he struggled to rise, yelling and trying to swing his whip. Choked by dust, clothes slit to ribbons by numberless clawed feet running across him, bleeding as if cut twice across every inch of his body, he sank helplessly beneath the onslaught.

  The monitors, famished after their long run, struck out ferociously at the Godgies swarming over them. Frenzied confusion erupted as the hungry monitors lashed out with their massive jaws. One hapless Godgie after another was snapped in half by the monitors’ razor-sharp teeth. But the vast herd kept coming, oblivious to any danger.

  When the first wave of Godgies hit the caravan, the monitors went berserk. Snapping and slashing with their teeth, they twisted with all their strength in their harness, trying to catch the Godgies in their powerful jaws. In the first seconds of this chaos, one of the monitors directly behind Helga jerked at the harness with such power that one side of it snapped. Sensing the new freedom of movement, the monitor gave a sharp slashing bite at the other side of the harness with his teeth. The tough harness did not break under the bite, but it was weakened enough that when the monitor yanked back the other direction to catch a Godgie it, too, snapped.

  The leading team of monitors was now free and began feasting on Godgies. It would have been better for them to run. Like a single massive wave, the Godgie horde overwhelmed the  monitors with the sheer power of an unending rush of bodies. Snapping and chomping at the Godgies, ever fighting, never wearying, still not even the ferocious monitors could stop the Godgies or turn aside their flight. Soon, they, too, lay silent beneath the still surging horde.

  When the harness had snapped, Helga had pulled with all her might and she, too, became free from the caravan harness. Unlike the monitors, Helga sensed that her only hope was to keep running, just as she had been running—but this time at the head of the Godgie Stomp! Flying like the wind, with Godgies running all around her, Helga again was running as if her life depended on it. She realized that running with the Godgies was the only way to keep from being trampled by the Stomp. And off she went, forcing her exhausted body to its maximum speed, running neck and neck with the Stomp.

  Reginald to the Rescue

  When Captain Red Whale Gumberpott and Fishbum first slipped over the side of the Daring Dream to escape the coming onslaught of the Wrackshees, neither had any idea what they would do next.

  “Quiet now, Fishbum, my good mate,” Red Whale whispered as they struggled against the eddies surrounding their ship. “Let’s head to the stern and cling to the rudder until we see what’s about,” Red Whale continued. “Once we see what’s up, we’ll make a plan.”

  “What if they slaughter the crew?” Fishbum asked, sorrowfully.

  “Now, mate, are you thinkin’ Capt’ Red Whale would have abandoned his crew to be slaughtered in their sleep? Oh, ya pain me, Fishbum! Why, I’d never have slid over the side on a night like that! No, there’ll be no blood runnin’ this night—them Wrackshees want slaves, not dead beasts. We goes over the side to have a chance of savin’ the crew, not to let ’em be roasted!”

  Time was shorter than desired, however. Red Whale had not completed cheering up his mate when the first of the Wracksee kayaks came around the bow. Seeing the outlines of the Wrackshees against the same starry sky he’d looked on with such joy shortly before, Red Whale motioned silently to Fishbum. Taking deep gulps of air, they submerged silently and followed the side of the ship underwater toward the stern. Surfacing twice to take nips of fresh air, Red Whale and Fishbum reached the rudder without causing notice.

  Clinging to the rudder chains, heads low and in the shadows, they listened to the nearly soundless attack of the Wrackshees. The Wrack
shees approached the Daring Dream at speed, but so quietly that Red Whale guessed they mush have their paddles wrapped to muffle the sound. The kayaks approached and encircled the ship completely. Red Whale noted that most of the Wrackshee boats were highly maneuverable, one-beast kayaks, capable of swift and agile attack. Behind the on-rushing wave of attackers, he also could see several large catamarans and some smaller, single-sail skiffs. He took note that the catamarans hung back, taking no part in the attack, and that each skiff carried two Wrackshee archers. The skiffs took up position within bow range at regular points around Daring Dream, apparently to provide cover for the attackers if needed.

  When the circle was complete, the majority closed on the ship and the attackers used small grappling hooks to secure climbing ropes on all sides. As soon as the hooks were thrown, the Wrackshees threw flash gourds up on the deck. As explosions rocked the Daring Dream, the attackers leapt up the ropes and boarded the ship from all sides.

  Because Red Whale and Fishbum had been the ship’s watch detail, the surprise was complete. The crew ran up from their bunks below, but in complete confusion. Unprepared for an attack, and finding the main deck swarming with an over-whelming force of Wrackshees, the crew surrendered without violence. A huge Wrackshee, with bulging arms and a head of long, shaggy orange hair, shouted in a lion-like, roaring voice, so that all the outlying Wrackshee kayaks might hear: “The ship is ours! Kayaks to the side—come to me! There’ll be no escaping now. Every beast is subdued and disarmed—and such a liver-hearted, sleepy-headed crew! Such a sorry lot o’ sea-beasts I never saw! Why they’re so easy o’ surrender that we’ve no need to scrape the decks with their heads! Who is the weak-kneed captain here?”

  “That would be myself,” Katteo Jor’Dane announced boldly, stepping forward.  “And might I inquire if you are you the slug-brained chief of these smelly thugs?” she continued sarcastically.

  The Wrackshee leader tilted his head and eyed Katteo dangerously. “And who might this be who’s first to be volunteerin’ for me to scrape the deck with her face?” Although the main drift of the question was decidedly unpleasant, the look betrayed surprise and uncertainty.

  Katteo was quick to pick up on the surprised curiosity in the Wrackshee’s look. “Aye, mate,” Katteo said with a rasping, threatening voice, “we sliced the spleens of our previous Captain into ribbons and fed him to the sharks. Then we got hit by the hurricane and battled the waves for days—so, yes, we was takin’ a little rest. But, I’ll be thankin’ you not to bad-mouth my crew, Dog-breath—or, Ol’ Suzy here might be tempted to just decide to spend no more time on you!” Instantly, Katteo revealed a cutlass concealed under her sea-cloak. Pulling the blade out dramatically, the cutlass sliced a long arc toward the Wrackshee, just nicking his cheek enough for a thin line of red blood to appear amidst the orange fur. “That’s my calling card, Dog-breath,” Katteo laughed. You may have taken the ship, but you have not taken our spirit!”

  Outraged that one of the Daring Dream crew would dare such an act, the Wrackshee leader stepped close to the upstart sea-beast. “Yes, my bug-eating roach, I took your ship—and I care not about your spirit, because it will do you no good when you are sinking to the bottom of the sea.” Turning to the Wrackshee horde massed behind him, he gave the order: “No quarter for such a wildcat. Subdue her!”

   Wrackshees swarmed forward, and in the blink of an eye, Katteo was disarmed and bound, head to toe, in ropes.

  The Wrackshee chieftain directed that Katteo be carried to the stern of the ship and lifted onto the gunwale. “Now, my Bug-brained Wildcat, do you want to leap off yourself, like a brave beast, or would you rather admit you are a cowardly rascal and have us throw you overboard? In either case, putting you off the rear of the ship show’s best to all to leave you in the past, while the rest of us go forward.”

  “The only cowards here be yourselves!” Katteo declared. “And rascal is too good a word for the likes of you Dung-swilling Hell-bounders! Nay, I’ll not take more of your filthy hands—I’m away on my own powers—my spirit whole, and off to see new adventures!” With that, Katteo gave a hop and dropped out of sight—KER-SPLOOSH!

  Alas for the Wrackshees, they should have thought again of their hasty act, for listening below were, of course, Captain Red Whale Gumberpott and his good mate, Fishbum. When the Wrackshee kayaks were summoned to the ship, abandoning their watch, Red Whale and Fishbum breathed a deep sigh of relief. Pulling themselves up and hanging their arms over the rudder chains, they listened with great interest to the proceedings above them.

  Hearing Katteo’s speech and seeing her fall past them into the sea, Fishbum silently slipped into the water and swam underwater to where Katteo was struggling in her bonds. Coming up beneath his struggling comrade, Fishbum tugged firmly on Katteo’s trouser leg until she stopped her struggles and allowed him to untie her feet. Now able to stay afloat by kicking her legs, Katteo still kept up the sounds of her struggle so as not to draw the attention of the Wrackshees back to her.

  Soon, Fishbum has also freed Katteo’s arms and Fishbum said softly, covered by the continuing sounds of Katteo’s dramatic struggle, “Now for the finale of your acting debut—drowning—make it real and trust me.” Taking a deep breath, Fishbum slid under the surface and pulled hard on Katteo, dragging her underwater. A more convincing image of an exhausted, drowning beast slipping into Davy Jones’s Locker was never presented. Once below the waves, and out of sight, Fishbum guided Katteo to the darkness behind the rudder workings where Red Whale was waiting.

  A gray-red dawn was beginning to streak the sky as the three comrades silently greated one another. The opportunity for happy reunion was short-lived, however, because cries and activity on the ship called their attention.

  “Butter-Slaggers coming along! Lines and ladders down! Slaves to the Butter Dock in time for breakfast! HORT-HAR-HORT! Breakfast—a stew of spiders and beetles for the lucky beasts! HORT-HAR-HORT!” The Wrackshee chief roared out in his bellowing style. The sounds of running feet, lines being hauled, and the cursing grunts of beasts straining at their work, painted a picture not lost on Red Whale. “Crinoo!” Red Whale cursed under his breath. “They’re going to steal away our mates! We’ve got to make a plan.”

  While Red Whale, Fishbum, and Katteo began their urgent deliberations, several large catamaran-style boats pulled alongside Daring Dream. The roughly-made vessels were constructed of two sets of logs, four or five in a group, strapped together with strong grass rope, then joined, one set to another, by a “deck” of woven ropes, supported by a light wooden frame. Two broad woven-reed prows, fronting the bundles of logs, allowed the boat to cut the waves with some grace.

  “Butter-Slaggers along and ladder down to the Wreckers!” The repeated call, made eight times, counted off the number of catamarans that pulled aside Daring Dream to take away the captured crew. Quickly, the crew of captured sea-beasts was hurried down the rope ladders onto the Butter-Slaggers. Alighting in the catamarans, the captives were greeted by Wreckers—mountain-sized Wrackshees detailed only to the hauling of slaves to the Butter Dock—seven feet or more in height, each one with the strength of ten beasts—scimitars and daggers bristling from their belts.

  “See here now, Wreckers!” the Wrackshee leader roared out from the Daring Dream helm. “Every one of you as reaches the Butter Dock with no escapes or dead beasts, there’s an extra lump of gold for you!”

  “Ho-Ho!” Red Whale thought to himself, smiling. “I wonder if that includes us?” For while the slaves were being loaded, Red Whale, Fishbum, and Katteo had swum under the Daring Dream and come up under together beneath one of the Butter-Slaggers. Catching hold of the underside corners of the woven-rope decking, the daring comrades well hidden and able to have their heads above water to breathe. “Ho-Ho! I think there may be more than an extra lump of gold coming to them with this cargo!” Red Whale had very good feelings about this turn of events.

  Red Whale had great fun listening to the Wreckers
arguing above him.

  “Yah! It must be a bad current running against us. There’s no wind, but we can’t keep up with the others!”

  “Blast it, Doggo, it’s just the lot of those slaves playing slacker at the paddles!”

  “Not so—looks to me like they’re pulling for all they’re worth.”

  “Yah! It’s a bad current running, I tell you! What else could it be? Maybe this bunch of sea-beasts are just heavier than they look!”

  Red Whale could hardly keep from laughing out loud. “Sure, and that’s the problem,” he smiled, “this bunch of sea-beasts is, indeed, a whole lot heavier than it looks!”

  Red Whale’s good humor did not last long, however. When the Butter-Slagger was about a mile off-shore, it began to cross the long rocky reef that protected the harbor. Sea-going ships had to enter the harbor by rounding the reef far down the coast, then sailing up the deeper channel behind the reef. Butter-Slaggers, however, were designed to cross the reef. Riding high in the water, and built to take pounding that would tear any ordinary boat to pieces, they skimmed over the treacherous rocks.

  For the comrades hanging beneath the slagger, it was the end of the voyage. The reef left no room for them to continue their stealthy ride. At the first insistent touch of the jagged rocks, Red Whale, Fishbum, and Katteo parted ways with the Butter-Slagger. In the spreading light of the dawn, the three comrades watched in dismay as the slagger danced across the rough current boiling across the reef. An impassable barrier now stood between them and their captive shipmates rapidly disappearing into slavery!

  With the natural instinct for self-preservation, and the stalwart sea-beasts’ slight capacity for swimming, the three friends struck out along the reef, looking for any possible break in the barrier. The dangerous current, continually threatening to crush them against the deadly rocks, soon exhausted their remaining energy, however.

  Gasping for air and losing strength rapidly, the three comrades at last pulled themselves up on a single rock, sticking up out of the waves foaming and lashing around it. Slippery and not at all level, the rock provided a precarious, but welcome, temporary haven from the thrashing sea. Relieved, the exhausted beasts collapsed and closed their eyes for a brief respite.

  Katteo noticed it first. Her exhausted, labored breathing had barely returned to normal when an overwhelming odor of fish assaulted her nostrils. The unbelievably fishy smell was accompanied by a loud strange bellowing and honking—as if someone were yelling through their nose.

  “What on earth?” Katteo stammered as she sat up and looked around.

  “Sea lions,” Red Whale replied, sitting up. “But where are they? I’ve seen them before and the smell and sound always hit you first—but they can’t be far off.”

  “OHO, THERE! SCHNORT-SCHUZUCK! MOVE OVER AND MAKE WAY!” With that announcement and a flop, flop, flop, a huge Sea-lion pulled himself up on the rock beside the sea-beasts.

  “AL-OHO, THERE!” the Sea-lion bellowed. “SCHNORT-SCHUZUCK-SNORT-SNORT—AH, THAT’S BETTER—HAD A BIT OF CRAB SHELL STUCK IN MY THROAT THERE FOR A MOMENT! EXCUSE ME WHILE I CATCH MY BREATH!”

  The Sea-lion had slid up the extremely slippery rock with the greatest of ease. With astonishing speed, its long cylindrical body seemed to glide up the rock, defying gravity. Flopping to a stop in front of the three comrades, its body shortened into a squat, immense mountain of flesh—nearly the size of all three sea-beasts put together. The almost bear-ish head and neck, would suddenly thrust out, turtle-fashion, with over-sized eyes peering closely when the beast talked in his bellowing, snorting manner.

  “HUURRUMPFF! GRRUMPT! PARDON ME IF I’M INTERRUPTING! SCHNORCKT! I’VE BEEN FISHING AND, AS I SAID—SCHUZUCKT—GOT SOME CRAB SHELL STUCK—MY FAVORITE MEAL, OF COURSE—THAT CRACKLY,  CRUNCHY, SALTY OUTSIDE, AND SQUISHY, WARM GUTS INSIDE—YUMM—ANYWAY, WON’T BE HERE LONG AND DON’T MEAN TO BARGE IN ON ANYTHING! SNORCHNORT!”

  Red Whale, Fishbum, and Katteo exchanged bemused looks. “There now, friend, don’t you be worrying on our account,” Fishbum said. “Why you’ve got as much right and need to be on this rock as we do. But, what’s your name? We’d be honored to know your name.”

  “REGINALD M.Q., AND THE HONOR OF KNOWING YOU IS MINE, I ASSURE YOU,” the Sea-lion replied. “AND WHAT PROUD NAMES DO YOU HOLD FOR YOURSELVES? SNORCHNORT! SNORCHNORT! SPPITT—SORRY THERE, OLD SPOT, FINALLY GOT THAT BLASTED CRAB SHELL DISLODGED AND—YOU KNOW—JUST HAD TO CLEAR MY THROAT, YOU UNDERSTAND—NOT MEANING TO SPPITT ON YOU. SNORCHNORT! SPPITT!—OH SORRY, THERE, OLD SPOT, THAT ONE GOT AWAY FROM ME. NO HARM DONE, THOUGH—JUST FLICK IT OFF ANYWHERE. NOW, I SAY AGAIN, WHAT PROUD NAMES DO YOU HOLD FOR YOURSELVES?”

  The three sea-beasts introduced themselves and fell into animated conversation with Reginald. When the Sea-lion learned of their current predicament, he was outraged. “WRACKSHEES IS IT? SCHNISST! POOPER-SCHOONCT! WHY THE POWERS OF CREATION DO NOT FEED THEM TO THE SHARKS, I CANNOT FATHOM! SHNORRT! WHY, I’LL HELP YOU RECOVER YOUR MATES! JUST YOU ALL CLIMB ABOARD AND I’LL HAVE YOU ACROSS THIS LITTLE REEF IN NO TIME!”

  “Us? Ride on you?” Red Whale said. “That seems a little disrespectin’ of your eminence, it’s not exactly the way me Mum taught me, you see….”

  “STUFFER-NONE-SUCH-SENSE!” The Sea-lion bellowed, more loudly than before. “SCHNORRCKT! GUZZZANSHNORT! WHY DO YOU THINK I’VE GOT SHOE-LEATHER ALL OVER ME AND FOUR INCHES OF BLUBBER UNDER THAT? THOSE WRACKSHEES ARE SO PROUD OF THEIR SLAGGERS—WHY I JUST SLIDE RIGHT ACROSS THE WHOLE MESS! SCHNORCKT!”

  Reginald was extremely angry now—his huge neck bulging, ferocious-looking teeth snapping. He roared and bellowed, the stiff bristles on his nose quivering like trees in a high wind. And, of course, the loud bellowing that seemed like words exploding deep in his sinuses.

  “CLIMB ABOARD, FRIENDS! I’LL HAVE YOU ON YOUR WAY IN  THE TIME IT TAKES ME TO SNAP THE SHELL OF CRAB IN MY TEETH!”

  Red Whale, Fishbum, and Katteo all climbed up on the immense beast, straddling his massive girth as best they could with their legs. But, once they were aboard, Reginald did not move, nor did he say anything. He appeared to be lost in thought and almost unaware of their presence on his back. Minutes dragged by and still nothing happened.

  At last, Red Whale ventured to ask, “Say there, Reginald, old salt, did you say we’d be leaving soon? I’m a bit worried that our shipmates may be breaking rock before can rescue them.”

  “SSZZZSCHORCHT! YOU WERE PERHAPS IMAGINING REGINALD M.Q. WAS SOMEONE ELSE? PERHAPS YOU IMAGINED HIM A COD-BRAIN OR SOMETHING? OF COURSE YOUR MATES ARE TIP-TOP-TIP IN MY MIND. SNORCHT! SZZORCKT! I’VE BEEN CONSIDERING THE BEST WAY TO EFFECT A RESCUE. JUST GETTING YOU ACROSS THE REEF DOES NOT HELP ALL THAT MUCH—SCHNORFT-SCHNOOFT—AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO THEN? SWIM THE REST OF THE WAY? NO-NO-NO-NO-NOHOOFT! THERE’S A MUCH BETTER PLAN!”

  Reginald was so pleased with himself that his hearty laughter set his immense body jiggling. As convulsive waves rippled through the Sea-lions flabby frame, the three comrades were nearly thrown off his back. “HOOOCH-HOOOCH-HAAACKKK-HAAACKKK-HOOOCHT! OH, IT’S TOO MUCH! WE’LL SET THE WIGGERS ON THEM! HOOOCH-HOOOCH-HAAACCKK! THE BORF WILL LOVE IT!”

  “Borf, Reginald? And who would the Borf be?” asked Katteo.

  “BORF RAIDING