“Two fold Comlumbinkie.”
They turned to Cosawta, who grinned.
“I told you true, lads. A find of finds.”
“Excuse me,” Harris piped up. “Am I some fucking treasure chest dug up from the Forling, Cosawta? Am I going to be sold to the fucking highest bidder in some slave market? Are these the . . . the bleedin’ auctioneers?”
Both men laughed.
“Bleedin’,” Smoothie said. “Good try, mate.”
“Mate?” Harris asked. “Are you from . . .”
“From the Dodingdaten,” Cosawta answered.
Harris gasped, B O and all.
“Fumarca?”
“Now, now, let’s not go callin’ us by names,” Mustache snapped.
“But Garan told me the residents of the Dodingdaten were . . .”
“Fookin’ Fumarca?” Smoothie said. “Garan would say that, he would. He’s a bleedin’ Goocheedee, after all. What would he know?”
“We do have names,” Mustache insisted.
“Do tell,” Harris asked. “You could have fooled me.”
“I’m Morris Culpeeper,” Mustache replied.
“And I’m his fair dinkum brother, Laurence . . . Culpeeper.”
“I’m Harris Cartwright.” Harris extended his hand, but the brothers only bowed.
“No, you’re not,” Morris said. “You’re Lord Belmundus, although from which arse-hole outland you dropped in from is a matter of discussion, ain’t it?”
“I’m from California,” Harris replied.
“A bleedin’ Seppo,” Laurence said.
“A Yank by any other name,” Morris echoed.
“We’re from Brisvegas,” Laurence said.
“I don’t know that place,” Harris confessed. “But you sound a bit Australian to me.”
“Australian? You bet your fookin’ chunder we’re Aussie.”
“From Brisbane,” Morris said. “We’re not your Whacker or your Tassie.”
“Nor no Corn Eater.”
Harris grinned. He hadn’t a clue what they said, but it was a delightful change from the sonorous Cetrone sgis and sguos.
“Well,” he replied, “it’s good to know I’m not alone.”
“You’re alone,” Morris said, his voice darkening. “Did you expect us from the DoDingoDatenus to be spun Fairy Floss, you daft drongo?”
“You’re as alone here as alone there,” Laurence said. “You’re stuck in the muck with a bevy of fuck. But once you get to know us, you’ll come to see there’s no good search like the one you’ve given up on.”
“Given up?”
Morris came close, stink and all. He winked.
“There’s no way out, if you know what I mean. At least, you were drawn to it — taken by the sexy kittens and given a little naughty.”
“We flopped in,” Laurence said. “A stroll in the outback — a pit in the bush.”
“I look-see’d in there, and said, ‘Larry, is that a bit o’ flash down the gully.’ And he said, ‘I think you’re right, Moe, or I’m not a Larrikin.”
Harris chuckled at the thought of being addressed by Moe and Larry and wondered if it meant Cosawta was Curly.
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘I’m up for a bit of bush bashing if there be a golden Swede at the bottom.’ So we took the plunge, and when we came out on the other side, we were in a land of fire.”
“Terrastrium,” Cosawta said.
“Terrastrium?” Harris replied, remembering the hellhole in question.
“It took a pull to find our way out of there,” Moe said. “Glad we did, too.”
“Hotbed of Kero, that,” Larry added. “But that yarn’s a long one.”
“We’re not in this fookin’ Asses-assis to talk about our adventures on the fiery storm,” Moe said. “We’re here to fossick — to see if what this Figjam Cetronian tells us is truth or just plain plonk.”
Harris grinned, barely able to keep from a full belly laugh. Although these men — the Culpeeper brothers from Brisbane, shattered any hope the Dodingdaten held the secret to an escape. The fact they were speaking some variant of English, which was less intelligible than the most arcane expressions in Farn, tickled his ribs. He looked to Cosawta.
“Just what have you told these men, Cosawta?”
Cosawta cocked his head.
“I have told them you are Lord Belmundus, the co-consort of the Scepta Charminus of the Ayelli. And you have the spark.”
“All consorts have the spark, whatever the fuck that means,” Harris said.
The Culpeepers grinned, looking to each other excitedly.
“You say true, my lord,” Cosawta said. “But you also have crossed the Forling, the first Ayelli to do so. You have brought a gentle view of the Cetrone and wear a double Columbincus. You have two brashun blades.”
Harris touched his Columbincus, and then Tony’s hilt.
“I have only one sword.”
Cosawta nodded, and then produced Hierarchus from beneath his robe. He extended it to Harris, who thought to let the Seneschal keep it, but a fire within told him to take and keep it. Cosawta did not express regret when Hierarchus was laid across Lord Belmundus’ lap. Harris suddenly felt authoritative, despite his lingering dizziness.
“Gentleman,” he said, spaciously. “I’m glad for the attention. It’s true I have much metallurgy of worth about my being, but is that any reason to come court me?”
“Court you?’ Moe said. “You’ve got the wrong notion there, Harris Cartwright.”
Perhaps it was an error to use his real (or, at least, his stage) name.
“We’ve come to tell you,” Larry snapped, pointing to Hierarchus, and then to Tony. “You’re the poop in our jib, but we’re the ridgy-didge road train.”
“Ridgy-didge?” Harris asked.
“The genyuwine fookin’ article. The rip-snorters of the DoDingoDatenus.”
“Rip-snorters?”
“Engineers,” Cosawta said. “Inventors.”
“Ah!” Harris recalled the names now from his journey in the Gananadana. The Culpeeper’s and their Seecoys. “I seem to recall something you said now, only your sister made you put it off.”
“Put it off, I have. And put it further off, we must. But I could not keep these fucker-jammers at bay any longer, or . . .”
“We’d become unproductive,” Moe said. “Nothing like showing us the Scratchy before we take the bait.”
“We’re not Maori sheepshaggers, you know.”
The brothers laughed.
“And this invention?” Harris asked.
“Inventions,” Moe corrected. “We shite them by the gross and piss them like an archer’s artifice.”
“Our drawing board’s bigger than this busker’s donger.”
“You must come and see,” Moe said.
“I’d love too, but . . .”
“Under the stoker, ain’t we?” Larry said. “And we much understand it. Wouldn’t want you to drop dead on us.”
“No,” Cosawta said. “My sister would have your balls in a hitching.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Larry said.
“Miss Little Fulchy has a definite view on things, she does. Never risk goin’ up against her wishes.”
They both bowed to Cosawta.
“So what is this thing you want me to see?” Harris asked.
“You’ll see it soon enough,” Moe said.
“Whatever you does do, or doesn’t do,” Larry said, “it’ll make a turn of events, don’t you doubt it.”
“Seecoys,” Harris announced.
“He knows it,” Moe said.
“Mind reader, he,”
“No. I’ve heard about it. Some kind of new Cabriolin.”
The brothers roared.
“Cabrioshite,” Moe said. “Seecoys are nothing like them.”
“Those Gurt motherbonkers had no notion of design.”
“No notion.”
Suddenly, a cane broke through the conversation, Nayowee pounding her way betw
een them.
“You disturb my smoke with your piss stench and zugginak shit talk of flying dollywaggles. This is a house of healing.” She snarled at Cosawta, who nodded obediently. “Where is that Taleenay to take you away from me, Lord Belmundus?”
“I am here,” Yustichisqua said from the doorway.
“Come take this brood from my fires. I can do no more and need to hibernate as an old woman should.”
4
The Culpeeper brothers turned and left quickly, their skimmers fanning briskly. Cosawta bowed to Lord Belmundus, and then to Nayowee.
“Just go,” she rankled. “Just go.”
Harris watched the Seneschal depart. It had been an interesting interview, but it exhausted him. He tried to rise off the bench, but Yustichisqua pinned him down.
“No, oginali. I have brought you assistance.”
Little Bird opened a korinkle, taking out a pair of zulus.
“Can I wear those?” Harris asked, recalling his odd foot size.
“I have crafted these over the days, oginali. They will fit, and I will guide you so you do not lose balance.”
“He needs to walk,” Nayowee shouted. “How will he learn to walk if he does not walk?”
“I agree,” Little Bird said. “But today he shall move in comfort.”
“Oh, yes, Taleenay. Now you are the medicine woman with eons of knowledge of these things. When I say he must walk, he must walk.”
Nayowee pushed the zulus aside, but Yustichisqua retrieved them and hit her stick away. He glanced angrily into her eyes.
“I am not afraid of you, old woman,” he shouted. “This is my oginali. You have done your best, and I appreciate it. But I know what he needs and it is not another moment of pain and suffering. He shall wear the zulus today. Tomorrow . . . we . . . shall . . . see.”
Nayowee raised her cane, surely to whack Little Bird unconscious, but Harris caught the stick, and eased it to the ground.
“Mother Nayowee,” he said sweetly. “I wait for your gufawpup, but I must insist my Taleenay perform his warrant. Can you repair a man’s honor when it is forgone? Is there a balm in your cauldron to heal that which is not broken?”
Nayowee shook her head, puckered her lips, as if to spit, and then turned back to her potions, grumbling with every step. Yustichisqua raised the alabaster foot and carefully attached the zulu. He had installed special padding to assure comfort. When it was secure, he looked into Harris’ eyes. Gratitude shone there.
“The other foot, oginali.”
Harris obliged him.
“That will be some gufawpup when it arrives, old man.”
“It will only cost you a toe, oginali . . . and perhaps one of my fingers.”
Chapter Seven
Enitachopco’s Say
1
Daylight stung Harris’ eyes, the suns-light piercing the high trees onto the plaza. At his appearance, children playing pole ball in an asorba grove, stopped to gawk at the awkward sight of an Ayelli guided by a Cetrone and balancing precariously on zulus. Harris, aware of these stares and others from sweepers in the square and smokers lounging before kaleezos, didn’t know whether he was expected to nod and wave. Surely, some act was required, because when he passed a gang of geetli men, who dug for byudra roots, they stopped and bowed deeply, their right legs extended respectfully.
“What do I do, old man?” Harris whispered to Yustichisqua.
“You say: O-see-yo.”
Harris slowed, and carefully turned, unsteady on the zulus, his leg comfortable, but unfeeling. He took a deep breath, and then said the words.
“O-see-yo.”
The men raised their faces and grinned.
“Toe-hee-ju,” they replied variously. “Toe-hee-ju.”
Harris nodded, and then continued his course.
“How did I do?”
“Fine, oginali.”
“What did I say?”
“Just a greeting. How do I find you?”
“And their reply?”
“Fine, sir, and how are you?”
“I should have thanked them.” He turned, the men bowing again. “Well, old man. What do I say?”
“A-ni-lo-li-ga.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“Then just say, O-see-an-i, and smile.”
Harris grinned.
“O-see-an-i,” he said. “A-ni-lolabrigita.”
The byudra diggers looked puzzled, then laughed.
“I believe they took your meaning, oginali. We shall work on such things, we will.”
“Ah, now you’re the teacher, eh?”
“I am the one holding you steady.”
That was true.
Harris continued through the plaza, stopping to greet anyone who bowed, trying his o-see-yo, and managing to approximate his thanks. He reached the kaleezo’s door. There he paused.
“Are you pulling me through?” he asked, regarding the heavy portal. "I’ve never been keen on wall travel, and now I might be too weak to pass through intact.”
“No, oginali. There is no kaybar in Cetronia.”
“No kaybar?”
“How can we handle it when we pass through it easily? We cannot lift it. It evades our touch.”
True enough. Harris was glad to hear it. He inspected the kaleezo. Like most, it was a roundhouse with black walls. However, the roof was a checkerboard of red and white shingles — whimsical.
“And this is for us?” he asked.
“It will serve until change.”
There was a notion — change.
Yustichisqua pushed the portal open, and tugged Harris into the roundhouse. It was cool and floral scented. He recognized Littafulchee’s aroma — the Rose of Scaladar. The inner walls were decorated with sigils — white strokes in a language he couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t Zecronisian script, which also eluded him. Those sigils were painfully brittle. These were soft, curved and reminiscent of the Latin alphabet, but not quite. At intervals, waddly wazzoo’s were hitched to lampposts. He counted six. Two unlit bronskers stood sentinel to a second chamber. Harris scanned the room until his focus found the center and fell on visitors.
Visitors already?
He counted four men huddled in buckskins and smoking pipes — sweet, aromatic smoke, but not like tobacco or hemp — lavender incense, perhaps. Then Littafulchee entered from the second room. The four men stirred, looking toward Harris for the first time.
Harris was at a loss. The zulus hampered him now, so he pulled on Yustichisqua, managing to step forward. Littafulchee curtsied. Harris tried to make the respectful bow, but it was too awkward, so he grasped Little Bird as a crutch, completing his welcome like a drunken sailor. Among the four men, one was prominent. Harris recognized him — an ashen man, with fine white braids and wispy beard. The old man wore a patch over his right eye. Harris had never met this man, but he had witnessed his image in the Cartisforium. This was the Elector of Zacker.
Harris tried his drunken bow again.
“Great lord,” he said.
“It is Enitachopco,” Yustichisqua whispered.
“O-see-yo, Enitachopco,” Harris said like a native.
Enitachopco removed the pipe and glanced at his three companions — all aged Cetrone. They laughed gently. Harris wondered if his welcome was regarded as foolish. Then Enitachopco took a long draw on the pipe, and lifted his left hand.
“You know my name, Lord Belmundus?” he asked, his voice resonating beyond his reedy frame. “Yet we have not met.”
Littafulchee hunkered down beside her father, whispering in his ear.
“Ah,” Enitachopco said. “You have seen our history in the room I had set aside to recall times past. Then I have no advantages in your company, sir. No advantages, which is much to my liking.”
“My lord,” Harris said. “I know only images. The rest is speculation.”
“Be comforted, weary spirit from the hill,” Enitachopco said. “Speculation is all we have in this lifetime.”
> “Time has wrapped us in haphazard,” said the old man to Enitachopco’s right — the ancient who wore a bright-green feathery shawl.
Belmundus (The Farn Trilogy Book 1) Page 56
