5
The sand kicked up furiously. Harris wrapped his cloak about his head, covering his mouth, Bedouin-fashion. He couldn’t stay aloft on the zulu, so he walked or hopped or hobbled. The wind howled. He expected a claw to pop from beneath the sand and do him in, but perhaps the porcorporians preferred fair-weather hunting. If the critters didn’t get him, his hunger or the infection would. Then he looked skyward to whatever sky could be seen.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He saw the outline of a terrerbyrd.
“No wonder the critters are in hiding. And I don’t even have a boot.”
The thing flew low, and he wasn’t sure it was a terrerbyrd, because, to his faulty knowledge, these reptiles were native to the Plageris. But perhaps this was a cousin — a horrorbyrd or a sandy flicker-fucker. It cast a significant shadow, but passed him. He tried to follow its course, but it disappeared beyond the next dune. His foot flared and he counted to ten, waiting for the agony to pass. When it did, he shuffled slowly up the dune, but visibility was appalling. He sighed and trundled on. Then he saw them — the Tippagores, or the outline of a big backside.
“Thank God,” he muttered.
He moved forward, but the big butt disappeared. A mirage? It was bound to happen. He looked again. The globular ass of the beast drifted in and out of view. He was sure it was a mirage, because it had psychedelic coloring — a tapestry of stripes in the colors of the rainbow.
“Foot gone. Eyes failing. Brain fried.”
He switched on the zulu. If the Tippagores were ahead, he’d catch them faster this way. But when the aniniya sandal revved, it tipped him forward and he crashed to the sand, his face slamming to the kowlinka. He spit out the grit and began weeping again. The fates had conspired to keep him alive to play with his soul. Torture. He didn’t wish for death, but he certainly didn’t want to dance with it. He crept forward, looking for the backsides.
“Gone.”
His breath hitched. He waited for his life to flash before him like the pundits assured it would. He glanced up. The mirage appeared again. Color and silver flaring. The colors were brighter and the silver drew near. He blinked, but sand encrusted his eyes. Then the foot flared again and he knew it would be for the last time. He clenched his fists, and clasped his eyes shut. His teeth gnashed to counter the agony. But now his mind was going. He saw things — colors, Tippagore butts and shimmering silver. Now he heard voices on the wind. He expected this. He expected the calls of his sister and his mother. Next he’d hear the angels and see God, if forgiven his sins. The voices came. The voice. One voice.
“Oginali.”
Harris opened his eyes. A vision came toward him — silver blowing in the wind. A cloak . . . and a runner.
“Oginali.”
“Little Bird?” he whispered. He pushed up from the sand. “Little Bird?”
Yustichisqua hastened to him. Harris mistrusted this vision. Mirages. Mirages. But no. The Tippagore butt clarified in the distance. Not the backend of a beast, but . . . a balloon — the ferry.
“Oginali.”
“Yustichisqua,” Harris rasped.
Little Bird rushed him, catching him as Harris fell again. Yustichisqua held him tightly, rocking him, brushing his hair through his fingers, weeping without shame or hesitation.
“I have come for you, oginali. Your Little Bird has come.”
Harris grasped his double Columbincus and kissed Yustichisqua’s hand. All pain subsided and, if he had died and this was heaven, an angel indeed had come.
Chapter Three
The Gananadana
1
Harris opened crusted eyes. Startled. He sweat, and yet had chills. He was tucked beneath a double cloak and felt the ground beneath him sway. It wasn’t ground, exactly — matting, perhaps, but he was too startled to analyze it, because the face hovering above him was familiar, but unexpected.
“Tomatly?” he muttered.
“You are awake, my lord,” the diminutive Cetrone gushed, and then turned his head aside and shouted. “He is awake. He is awake.”
This call brought two other faces over Harris.
“Oginali,” Yustichisqua said, grasping Harris’ hands, rubbing them. “You are still warm. You have fever.”
Harris latched onto Little Bird’s hands and tried to pull up.
“Not so fast, Lord Belmundus,” carped the other attendee, the broad and muscular Cosawta.
“Where am I?”
“Not dead,” the Seneschal said. “A fucking mess, as they say in the Dodingdaten, but enough remaining to reintroduce you to life.”
“You are still ill,” Yustichisqua said.
“Where am I, old man?” Harris panted.
“On the Gananadana, oginali.”
“The what?”
“My ship,” Cosawta replied. “An airship with modified gondola, jupsim strength canopies, a true rudder and flying under full waddly wazzoo power.”
“The ferry? A balloon?”
“Give that man a seegar,” Cosawta drawled. “Welcome to my Gananadana.”
Harris tried to prop himself up again, but fell back to the mat, Yustichisqua adjusted the cloaking. Tomatly brought a rag and dribbled water over Harris’ lips.
“Thank you,” he gasped. “I’ve had nothing to drink except . . . well, you wouldn’t believe it.”
He grasped Yustichisqua’s shoulders, and succeeded to push up, finally. He looked about the gondola — the basket he had seen in the Kalugu, only it was spacious like the poop deck of a sailing vessel. In fact, Cosawta gripped a steering mechanism — a rudder. Five waddly wazzoos formed a ring beneath the canopy, their light regulating the balloon’s mass — a huge blimp, striped with the colors of the rainbow. Harris recalled seeing it through the red dust of the desert, thinking it was a Tippagore butt.
“Impressive,” he muttered.
“It is the finest Gananadana to sail these skies,” Cosawta said.
“Why don’t you just call it a fucking balloon?” Harris mused, weakly.
“I may be Seneschal, but you are Lord Belmundus of the Columbincus. Your wish is granted.” Cosawta yanked on the rudder. “But I say, it’s the biggest fucking balloon to cross the Yinaga.”
He laughed, and then was joined by his sister, who stood beside him, perhaps to chide him for the language.
“My lady,” Harris said, trembling. He felt dizzy and slumped back to the mat. “My lady. You’re here?”
Littafulchee knelt beside him, her buckskin robes brushing his face. She touched his forehead, and then kissed it.
“I’m blessed,” Harris said.
“You are, Lord Belmundus. We have been searching for you for many days and thought you were lost to us.” She touched the Columbincus. “But this signaled us, even through the kowlinka winds. We know this sigil’s call.”
He clasped his hand over hers.
“My lady,” he whispered. “Stay with me.”
“Where am I to go? It is a fearsome drop from this gondola to the dunes.”
“Dunes? We are still in the Forling?”
“Yes, oginali,” Yustichisqua said, a voice reminding Harris the world was still with him, although he would have enjoyed the sole company of the lady. “You must rest, if you are to recover.”
“Your wound has festered,” Littafulchee said. “Your fever has been high. Let us hope it has broken.”
“Time will tell,” Tomatly squeaked. “Time will tell.”
“Time,” Harris mumbled.
He still had pain in the foot, but less so.
“Time will take you to the asi-asa, where the medicine women will know the best course,” Littafulchee said. She kissed his forehead. “Until then, you must slumber . . . my love.”
He smiled as she moved away, sitting at Cosawta’s feet as he steered the Gananadana — the big fucking balloon. Harris closed his eyes. He heard the hiss of the waddly wazzoos and Tomatly’s high-pitched chatter. He grasped at the cloak, but found a hand. Was it h
er hand? No. He knew this hand, and he clutched it tightly.
“Thank you, old man,” Harris whispered, and then drifted back to slumber.
2
The fever broke and Harris was hungry. He scrabbled from slumber, seeking Tomatly’s rag, but was greeted with a gobblet of brantsgi. Ah, heaven in a cup. Yustichisqua had cold hawiya yukayosu. Harris bolted it faster than he had bolted the roast tludachi he had braised with Tony. This hawiya was the most delicious pogo-pogo he had ever eaten, although only the second time he had eaten it. He drank more, and then Yustichisqua fed him hiloseegi fruit slices. These were better than kissing, although they made him pucker. With each morsel, he felt strength coursing through his body. Yet, he was racked with pain — the weariness of running a marathon with the added dimension of a bum demon foot.
He paused, looking about the gondola again. The sky was different — green.
“Yichiyusti,” he muttered. “He stirs. Kuriakis stirs.”
“He does that,” Cosawta bellowed from the rudder. “Your escape has probably put him in a shitty mood.”
“Not anger, surely?” Harris said. “I’m his Boots.”
“Boots or flutes,” Cosawta replied. “He always has been a moody cuss, and I have known him longer than you.”
Longer. A few thousand years longer.
“Little Bird, help me up.”
“It is too soon, oginali.”
“You’re a doctor now?”
“When no medicine woman is near, I must be who I must be.”
“Help me up.”
Yustichisqua reluctantly lent Harris his shoulder. Dizzy and unsteady. Little Bird became his crutch. The foot, still useless, could have been a numb stump for all the good it did. Harris grabbed the edge of the gondola, and then sighed.
“What a glorious sight.”
“It is just the fucking Forling beneath the big fucking balloon,” Cosawta said, laughing.
“The ganigonads,” Harris said, chuckling feebly under the circumstances.
The red kowlinka dunes spread for miles in all directions. Even from this height, and they were high, no mountains loomed in the distance. The gondola sported two fake wings and a terrerbyrd prow. So he hadn’t imagined seeing a terrerbyrd when so desperate in the desert.
“It’s bird shaped,” he said, stating the obvious.
“It keeps the nasties at bay,” Cosawta replied. “Scares the shit out of them. Besides, I like it. It appeals to my bizarre sense of humor.”
Harris leaned over the side, gingerly. The gondola, larger than he had remembered it in the rain-soaked courtyard in the Kalugu, was weighed down with an undercarriage of cargo. As he gazed across the Forling, he spotted two massive creatures lumbering along. He recognized them at once.
“There they are,” he stammered, pointing.
“They are Tippagores, oginali.”
“They are family, Little Bird.” He turned toward the rudder, where Littafulchee now stood. He nodded to her. “When I was attacked by the porcorporian and tludachi, the Tippagores killed them and then . . . and then they offered me their hospitality for days. I would have died long before you found me if it hadn’t been for Mr. and Mrs. T’gore.” He smiled, but then twitched. “Where’s Tony?”
Yustichisqua pointed to a bale abutting the gondola. Both swords were stuck upright in the bale. Harris sighed with relief.
“Interesting question that begs,” Cosawta said. “How does one go into the desert with one brashun blade and emerge with two. I have never known these things to have babies.”
“And your Columbincus,” Littafulchee remarked. “It has enlarged — doubled.”
Harris touched his brooch, and then bowed.
“Only one sword is mine,” he said, “and I fear I might have spoiled my powerful gemstone.”
“How so?” Cosawta grumbled. “Worlds might turn on your brooch’s power, sir. Take care with such things.”
Harris brightened.
“I’ve learned one trick.” He waggled his fingers and Tony shone. In fact, both swords illuminated.
“Good first step,” Cosawta said. “Both are responding to you. Excellent.”
Littafulchee approached, her hands extended. Harris reached for her and almost fell, but Yustichisqua steadied him. Harris grasped her hands, and she pulled him to the base of the rudder. He sat beside her, Tomatly hunkering nearby.
“Go on,” Cosawta said, tugging at the rudder. “We have questions.”
“So have I.”
“You first, Lord Belmundus. We are not a puzzlement, but you are.”
“Are you ready to tell us the sadness of your journey,” Littafulchee asked, “and how you came so far, surviving with so little?”
“And so much,” Cosawta said.
“Brother,” Littafulchee chided. “We will wait, if we must. There are still many leagues to travel and Lord Belmundus has just stirred from his nightmare.”
At the word stirred and nightmare, Harris looked to the Yichiyusti sky and thought of Kuriakis on his giant steed, brooding about the gardens near Greary Gree. He didn’t want to upset his father-in-law. He never had a beef with the man, who was always indulgent when it came to Boots of Montjoy. He sighed.
“I suppose now is as good as any to tell you.” He looked to Yustichisqua, who retrieved the hiloseegi slices. “No, old man. Come sit and listen.”
Harris patted the gondola’s planks and looked to the sky again.
3
The memories of his journey were painful, so he kept it short and simple. He told them about his escape, which they had helped engineer through Garan. But he also admitted his worry for Elypticus and Parnasus. He cursed the Cabriolin and its failure.
“Cabriolins cannot withstand the kowlinka,” Cosawta explained. “You must fly high above the dust. If you fly low or land, you risk gumming the works.” He raised his hands to the Gananadana. “Why do you think we cross the Yinaga in the big fucking balloon?”
Harris was glad to know this, because the loss of not one, but two Cabriolins in the Forling puzzled him.
“There is a solution,” Cosawta said. “The Culpeepers and their Seecoys.”
“Brother,” Littafulchee said. “This is not the time.”
Harris would have liked to hear more about the solution, but Littafulchee was correct, so he continued, relating the night of terror when the gasuntsgi chewed his boot and bit his foot. Yustichisqua was delighted Harris had used the contents in the korinkle for first aid, particularly the bupka as a medical mop. He expressed pleasure upon hearing the account of balancing on one zulu.
“I remember when you could not stand on two, oginali.”
But then came the crisis. Harris spoke of the porcorporian and the tludachi and the Tippagores. He spoke of Mama Tippagore’s nurturing care, but omitted the weaning and glossed over the affair with the tludachi haunch, except to say it was an advance on his knowledge of Tony — the heating and the eating of it.
“No wonder we could not find you,” Cosawta said. “We knew you were crossing the Forling. Garan told us as much. But Tippagores traverse in wide circles. We might have passed your trail many times and mistaken it for the beast’s normal track.”
“I realized I was drifting and, when I did, I decided to follow the suns’ course. But the desert denizens let me be when in the big ones’ harbor.”
“Wise decision,” Cosawta said.
“I have never known these beasts to be kind,” Littafulchee said. “You must have impressed them.”
Harris looked to Yustichisqua.
“The female was the one we saved from the Pod.”
“A good thing, oginali."
“Unfortunately, the weaker I became, my ability to keep up faded and ended. Then I saw . . .” He touched his Columbincus.
Littafulchee sighed and came close to him.
“You saw your Columbincus?” she asked.
“His Columbincus.” He pointed to the swords. “I found the remains of Lord Hierarchus.
”
Cosawta let loose the rudder. Littafulchee turned her face away. Harris sensed fear. Cosawta withdrew one sword from the bale, and held it high.
“Lord Hierarchus’ sword?” Cosawta mused.
“I have named it after him.”
“We need no reminder of him,” Littafulchee said. “He had not the spark, as you do.”
Belmundus (The Farn Trilogy Book 1) Page 52
