Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2)

by Travis M. Riddle

  Soon, the music stopped, and Puk simply stared down at his fingers as they ceased moving, as if in disbelief the sounds had been coming from him. He glanced up at Kali, who was at a loss for words.

  Eventually, after several moments of shared silence, she said, “I thought you were gonna play a happy one.”

  Puk shrugged. “The music sounded happy, at least,” he said. “Ain’t all songs a little bit sad, anyways?”

  She said, “I hope your horny ones aren’t.”

  That quip made him crack a smile. She was glad to see his mood lightening.

  Kali asked him, “Why didn’t you ever play that one?”

  His answer was simple. “I only wrote it a couple months ago,” he said. “Never had the chance. Not ’til now.” His stalks dipped down to look at his fingers again, before locking eyes with Kali. “Thanks,” he told her.

  To Kali’s delight, Puk continued playing the duraga throughout the night, after they ducked out to grab him some dinner. He didn’t sing anything else, but he did play a bit of music.

  As they shut down for the night to go to sleep, Kali couldn’t get the melody of his whistling out of her head.

  CHAPTER XV

  HUM

  Bella sniffed curiously at Puk’s duraga, eliciting laughter from the qarm, while Kali navigated the route in her head for the hundredth time.

  She felt she retained a pretty clear picture of the map Haratti showed them in his office, but there was a pit in her stomach sinking lower and lower at the thought of riding out into the desert toward nothingness. They were still doing fine on supplies, but Puk’s bag of dried fruit wasn’t limitless.

  “Should we ask the stablemaster?” Puk suggested, strapping his new duraga to the rest of the ayote’s tack. Bella goofily craned her head around, trying in vain to catch another whiff.

  “Not at all,” Kali said, shaking her head. “It wouldn’t be smart to let anyone in on where we’re headed. If Thom or anyone else happens to be on our tail, we shouldn’t leave behind any clues. It’d be as easy as them asking if the purple girl and tiny blue boy asked for directions somewhere. We’re a strange pair, not easy to forget.”

  Puk nodded and said, “Makes sense.”

  “I thought you were a crime master,” she smirked. “Shouldn’t that have been lesson one?”

  “Lesson one in crime school is actually an explanation for what crimes are,” Puk retorted. “And no, I’m not a crime master! I don’t do crimes!”

  Kali shrugged. “Seems like you’re a crime-y type of guy, given the people you run with. And you were awfully familiar with Myrisih…”

  “I’m friends with scumbags, but I’m not quite that level of scumbag yet,” said Puk. Kali laughed.

  She took another minute to think through their route and how long it would take them based on her estimate of the fallen airship’s crash site. She was slightly more confident in the plan now, and was pleased with herself. Maybe she wasn’t quite her scholarly sister, but she knew a thing or two.

  Kali ushered Puk onto Bella’s back, playfully scolding him for intriguing and confusing the ayote with the duraga’s scent. She lifted him up onto the animal.

  He was about to take a sip from his recently-filled waterskin and she asked, “You sure you wanna do that already?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “It’s gonna be a thirsty trip.”

  He took a tiny sip.

  She pulled herself up onto Bella’s shell—nearly accidentally slamming her boot into Puk’s face as she swung it over—and grasped the reins, gazing out into the empty tan expanse ahead of them.

  And then they were off to Pontequest.

  - -

  The ride was like any other ride in the desert, which is to say that it made Puk miserable.

  He felt overheated an hour into the trip. The temptation to chug his water was overwhelming, but he scrounged up the necessary willpower to resist. By now, he had mercifully gotten through the worst of his spit withdrawal symptoms, and was feeling considerably better than he had back in Myrisih. Needing frequent bathroom breaks while traversing the desert would not have been pleasant.

  Though, if he really thought about it, the day’s journey was not as soul-crushing as others had been. Sure, his underside was aching from multiple days of bouncing up and down on the ayote’s rough shell, but his mood was surprisingly chipper, all things considered.

  The instrument smacking against their mount had to be the reason.

  Playing his song, finally bringing it to life, had unburdened him in a way he hadn’t realized he needed. The song, and everything it represented, had been weighing him down for months. Possibly years. Letting it out of himself, bringing it into the world, vocalizing it, felt…

  He searched for the perfect word. But sometimes, the simplest word worked best.

  It felt good.

  It felt good expressing those emotions through a song. Puk had never really been one for heartfelt conversation. Putting his feelings into some form of art felt more natural. More comfortable.

  So he was gladdened by the fact Kali chose not to prod, not to question what the song was about. She surely knew it wasn’t about a girl, or any real person.

  Maybe she didn’t ask because she already understood. Because it was about the same topic that had come up between the two multiple times over the course of their trip.

  It always circled back to that. To the rut he was in. Had been in for years now.

  Before, Puk had been perfectly content with his plan to collect the bounty on this stupid book that everyone wanted, bop his ass back to Atlua, and track down the nearest dealer he could find so he could get high and unwind. Probably sing in some bars to make a few crescents, maybe eventually find a new troupe to join, though maybe not. Too much work.

  For years, he had been stuck in this rut, lending himself excuse after excuse not to yank himself out of it, starting with that man in Lors who smashed his lute to pieces.

  Writing music was hard work. Expressing himself was hard work. Bringing something new into the world was hard work.

  Getting high was easy. Playing Hunt or volleywag was easy. Doing nothing was easy.

  Way easier than making music.

  But that contentment had been paired with resentment. Everything he was doing was a waste. He had nothing to show for his life, nothing to be proud of. All he’d done for years and years was kill time.

  Now, with the duraga slapping against her side as Bella bounded across the dunes, he wondered if that might have changed.

  He smiled. His arms were wrapped tight around Kali’s waist, fearful of letting go and flying off the ayote’s back and careening into the sand. As he sat there, grinning like a fool, he was amused thinking about how the woman didn’t have a clue to what extent she’d changed his life.

  No more killing time, no more excuses. He needed to pull himself out of the rut. He had to break the cycle.

  Inaudible to Kali over the splash of Bella’s feet in the sand and the wind whipping at their faces, Puk began to hum a little tune to himself. The vibrations of his throat carried the melody up to him, and he began to craft something new.

  After a while, Kali pulled back on the reins to slow Bella down. She wanted to give the ayote a bit of rest. It was only midday, and there was still plenty of blinding sand ahead of them. Bella cantered along at a brisk pace, squealing with pleasure. Her tail whipped back and forth behind them.

  It had been a long while since Weynard disappeared at their backs, and nothing at all had taken its place on any side of them throughout the day. No other towns, no matter how far off in the distance. No oases. Not a single animal. Hardly any cacti. Not even a pleasant mirage to interrupt the boundless dunes.

  Wherever it was they were going, it was remote. Even for the desert.

  Puk still felt residually saucy after the prior night’s performance, so even though the song he’d been working on throughout the day was far from polished, he was compelled to share. With t
heir slower pace, a song could help break up the silence and monotony.

  “I’ve been workin’ on something new,” he said.

  “I could tell,” said Kali. “I felt the vibrations of your humming.”

  He felt slightly awkward. “Oh,” he sputtered. “Well—”

  “Are you able to play it?” she asked. “Sitting up on Bella, I mean. Bouncing around.”

  “I think so,” he said. “My arms are way too short to reach the duraga, though.”

  Kali assisted him in that regard. She reached down over Bella’s side and unhooked the instrument, bringing it back up to place in Puk’s hands. He smiled and thanked her.

  “It’s a little weird,” he warned her. “It’s not like last night’s song. More like the stuff I wrote years and years ago. Kinda long and rambling, but hopefully with some good melodies. People didn’t seem to care for ’em none, though.”

  “Hence writing to market,” Kali chuckled. “So this isn’t one of your horny songs, I take it.”

  “Not at all.”

  He cleared his throat, which was a senseless endeavor given how dry it was. There was a quick temptation to take a gulp of water before he began, but he resisted. He was trying his best to make his companion proud and—for once—not drink all of his water halfway through the day.

  Then he dove into the song.

  It began with simple chords strummed with the duraga’s light strings. He believed keeping the music simplistic would enjoyably contrast and accentuate the more complex lyrical melodies. He began to sing.

  “Each day they left before the sand could warm

  Comfort lost, while the Ribroad pierced the sky

  Each night of his far gone with spit and song

  And hers a slog onward to the city sunk

  Their paths aligned, the flower and the qarm.”

  He continued strumming, adding a few bright flourishes to the same chords. The music flitted through the wind, and Kali let out a soft giggle.

  “So you’re writing a song about us,” she said.

  “That was the plan, yep,” he said. “It’s still kinda sloppy, I admit. And I don’t have much more than that and another half-verse. Got a lot of work to do, but it’s a start, I s’pose.”

  He could feel his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. The lyrics were rough to begin with, and even so, he had stumbled over a few of them, thrown off by the ayote’s gait. Plus, some of the chords did not entirely fit as well together as he’d imagined in his mind, so those would need minor tweaking as well.

  “I like it,” Kali then said.

  Puk’s shame diminished. He smiled.

  “It’s a little weird, though, that you use a metaphor to describe me but then yours is literal,” she said. “Don’t you think? ‘The flower and the qarm’ is sorta odd. I hope that’s not too forward.”

  He said, “Nah. Good note, honestly.”

  Even in its rough stages, it had been fun writing the song. This journey had been the greatest—and, admittedly, probably the only—adventure he’d ever been on, and it only felt right that he dedicate a song to it.

  That was what all the greats did, after all. An epic song for an epic tale.

  “I’m not sure what ‘the city sunk’ is, though,” she pointed out.

  “That’s supposed to mean Myrisih.”

  “I thought Zenib called it the floating city.”

  “Hey, I said it was a work-in-progress.”

  “What’s the other part you have written?” Kali asked him. “The half-verse.”

  “Oh, it’s in even shittier shape than what you just heard,” he chuckled. “I’d be mortified to show you that part right now. Not to mention, I think my throat is about to fall out of my neck.”

  “I’m not sure that makes any sense at all, and yet I know exactly what you mean.”

  “The mark of a gifted storyteller.”

  - -

  “I’m gonna die,” said Puk behind her. His stubby blue arms were wet and sticking to her shirt. “This is the end of me. My final day.”

  “You say that every day we travel,” she pointed out.

  “Well, this time it’s true.”

  “You say that too.”

  Several more hours had passed since their break when the qarm had performed his new song, and Bella had been at a full run for most of it. Another long day. The ayote, at least, was finding immense joy in their travels. She loved dashing through the hot sands, zig-zagging back and forth with the wind whistling in her ears.

  Given the frequency with which one of his arms had disappeared from her waist throughout the afternoon, Kali was sure that Puk exhausted his water supply long ago. She was gearing herself up to chastise him for the infraction when suddenly it crested the horizon.

  Wood.

  The frame of a ship, to be precise.

  It was still difficult to fully make out at their distance, its image wavering in the desert heat, but Kali was confident they were looking at the fabled Pontequest.

  “We’re almost there,” she shouted over the wind. “Look!”

  She didn’t feel his body shift, so Kali guessed that the qarm’s eyestalks had slithered around either side of her body to peer ahead.

  “That’s it?” he yelped, his croaky voice barely carrying.

  “I think so!”

  From what she’d heard years ago, the glorious ship Pontequest had crashed headfirst into the desert, crushing its bow. The impact rippled through the hull, which stood nearly vertical, and the weight of its stern caused a crack to rupture the ship’s center, leading the back half of the ship to break completely free. That back half had landed vertically as well, the pointed stern digging into the sands, before swiftly toppling over upside down. The front half sunk deeper into the sand, shifting slightly, ending up sticking out of the ground at a slight tilt with its broken center jutting out high in the air, piercing the sun.

  What was currently visible over the horizon had to be that broken middle section of the ship, standing tall and proud.

  So Haratti’s crew was not mistaken.

  The ship still existed.

  There was no explosion that destroyed the remainder of the ship, hiding it away beneath the careless desert.

  Which meant that perhaps there was indeed a town built around or within the airship. Kali had to imagine if so then by now, so long after the incident, the wreckage was no longer openly exposed to the air and had been built over. Granted, she had no idea how the makeshift town around the wreckage had been constructed.

  “How easy you think it’s gonna be to find our guy Kleus there?” Puk asked. Kali wondered if his beady eyestalks were still flanking her.

  “Don’t know,” she answered, her voice bouncing with Bella’s leaps.

  “How easy you think it’ll be to steal the book from him?”

  From the secreted-away red mage who can supposedly use magic to warp reality itself?

  “Don’t know,” she said aloud. Her stomach churned.

  An hour later, they reached the village. The second mythical, unconfirmed town she had visited in a single week. This was quite the voyage. Definitely worthy of Puk’s song.

  Pontequest was not the magnificent sight she had pictured back when she’d first heard stories about the crash. In fact, it was a bit of a mess, as should have been expected from an insignificant town built around the wreckage of a crashed airship.

  The opening in the hull had indeed been closed off, with differently colored wood boarded over the giant, misshapen hole. On that patch of lighter wood was a symbol painted in red, presumably a symbol of the village. It was a plain rectangle, with curved lines underneath like waves.

  Scaffolding had been built connecting the two halves of the ship, with a vegetable-tanned leather tarp strapped atop, providing shade to the area below. It was not unlike the Ribroad.

  Several doors had been built into the wall of the upside-down half of the ship. Kali was eager to explore the inside, which must be a surreal expe
rience, walking around on the ceiling. There was a single opening allowing entry into the other half of the ship, which was located on the slant of its underside. Several feet above the entryway, jutting out from the ship and slipping through some of the scaffolding to dig into the sand, was a partially submerged mast that had seemingly been broken off the deck of the ship and planted into the ground.

  In between the two ships, shaded by the tarp, was a collection of modestly sized dome tents, pitched around the sunken mast. Assuming that was where most of the town’s population lived, there couldn’t be more than thirty families there, so perhaps seventy to eighty people. It couldn’t be too difficult a task tracking down Kleus Saix.

  But if that were the case, it begged the question: why had no one else done so yet?

  “Looks like a shitty place to live,” said Puk.

  “Don’t be rude,” Kali chided him, though internally she agreed.

  There didn’t appear to be a stable where they could safely house Bella. That could present a problem. The ayote stood by their side, panting gleefully after her hours-long run through the desert. Her energy was endless.