Additionally, there wasn’t any place that obviously served as an inn. It should not have come as a surprise to her, given the town’s existence was a guarded secret. No wonder they didn’t have an establishment for housing visitors.
Only a few people were mingling outside in the tented area, and they stopped to peer out into the distance at the approaching visitors. It had to be an uncommon sight. Kali waved to them, but none reciprocated.
“I’m gettin’ a weird vibe from this place,” Puk said.
She almost told him again not to be rude, but she did not disagree with the assessment. The town and its residents seemed peculiar. She was not opposed to finding the book and getting out as quickly as possible.
“Hello!” she said with an inviting smile as they came to a stop in front of the few people who had gathered outside.
“Hi,” said a woman with some apprehension. She was plump and wore a red bandana around her neck, the same color as the town’s symbol looming above them. “Y’all lost? Need directions? We can get you outta here quick.” She glanced down at Puk with untrusting eyes. If she had been born in Pontequest, it was entirely possible she had never seen a qarm in her life.
“Nope,” Puk replied, and the woman nearly jumped. “We’re right where we wanna be, thanks.”
Kali moved right to the point. “Is there anywhere we can keep our ayote during our stay?” she asked.
“Stay?” a man piped up. Anger tinged his words. “What you plannin’ to stay for?”
“To see the fuckin’ sights,” Puk blurted, clearly unable to contain his acerbic sarcasm.
Kali attempted to smooth things over, though these people’s lack of even the most basic hospitality confused her. Granted, they undoubtedly valued their privacy and it had possibly been years since they had encountered a new face, but their entire village was founded by desert nomads who’d decided to settle down. Why were they so hostile toward fellow travelers?
“We just need a place to rest,” Kali said, glossing over their true reason for visiting. “Only a day or two while we gather our bearings. Is that alright?”
The townsfolk mumbled to themselves, but nobody outright rejected them. More people began to emerge from their tents to catch a glimpse of the commotion.
So Kali asked again, “Is there a stable, or…?”
“No stable,” said the woman, eyeing Bella with distaste.
Kali sighed. It was beyond obvious that Pontequest didn’t want any visitors. But she pressed forward. “Well, is there anywhere we can lock her up to make sure she doesn’t run off? This one certainly loves running. We can pay.”
The woman remained silent, but the irritable man spoke up again. “I’ve got some extra storage that could fit her,” he said. “I’ll take your money.”
Well, even if they didn’t want visitors, at least they did want money. Some of them did, anyway. That was a start.
“That’d be great,” Kali said, plastering a smile on her face, trying to show that she appreciated their time and efforts. Hoping it would help put the other, more distrusting, folk at ease.
“Gotta go clear it out,” the man said before stumbling off toward the upturned stern of the ship. He swiftly slipped through one of the numerous doorways.
To the growing crowd, Kali said, “Thank you all. I’m also wondering, though, if there’s a place we can sleep? An inn, perhaps?” She would even take a situation like Grace’s house back in Weynard, though she would be truly shocked if anyone here gave enough of a damn to open their home to strangers. “We can pay for that as well,” she added, in case they had already forgotten.
But the woman shook her head, and no one else corrected her. “Ain’t no inn,” she said bluntly. “Gonna have to find your own place to sleep. Hope you brought a tent.”
They hadn’t, and Kali knew all too well how cold the Gogol nights could get. Puk might fare okay with a thick blanket, but it would not be great for her.
Maybe we can find Kleus fast. Like…today, she thought optimistically, knowing it was delusional.
With their business seemingly concluded, many of the residents began returning to their tents. The chubby woman remained steadfast in her spot, arms on her hips, glaring at the two intruders.
“…we’ll wait over here,” Kali said, tugging on Bella’s reins to lead her closer toward the stern and away from the unreasonably sour woman. Puk followed, kicking up sand with each step.
Once they were out of earshot, Puk asked, “The fuck’s wrong with these people?”
“I don’t know,” Kali admitted. “Fair warning, we might be shacking up with Bella tonight. I’m not sure either of us could withstand the cold outside.”
“That’s fine with me. She don’t kick in her sleep, though, does she?”
“Don’t know,” Kali chuckled. After saying the phrase so many times, she felt a lot less knowledgeable now than she had earlier that morning.
It was not yet night, but it was fast approaching. They could attempt to find some clues as to Kleus’s whereabouts, but she wasn’t confident they would sniff anything out.
Tomorrow, the hunt would begin in earnest.
CHAPTER XVI
SEEING THINGS
The storage room wasn’t comfortable. Puk should not have expected it to be comfortable, and in truth he hadn’t, but he was annoyed by the distinct lack of comfort all the same.
He was first to awaken the next morning, rustled to consciousness by his discomfort and a menacing rumble in his stomach. His body lay flat on the dusty wooden floor while he arched his eyestalks upward to more closely examine their surroundings.
It was a sizeable room inside the part of Pontequest that had separated from its front half in the unfortunate crash. The room’s ceiling was only around seven feet high, considerably shorter than the full height of the ship. There might be a staircase leading up to more rooms somewhere, but Puk was damned if he knew where it was or what the second (and third? Fourth?) story held, if anything. With this portion of the ship being upended, the town’s residents might have given up on making use of the rest of its space.
The room’s gruff owner, whose name was Paul, had led the three of them into the stern of the Pontequest (which had been a tight fit for poor Bella). The entire bottom—or top, depending on how one viewed it—of the ship had been gutted, with the materials reused to build a layout more suited to the former nomads’ means.
And that layout was completely utilitarian. There was a single walkway running down the center of the ship, and on either side of it, walls had been built up to the ceiling, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere that put Puk on edge. The walls were lined with a handful of doorways, which all led to similar storage rooms. Almost all the doors lining the outside of the ship led directly to individual work rooms, with only one at the front and back leading instead to the hallway. Puk did not understand why the storage rooms had inner doors and the work places had outer doors, but then again he did not understand anything at all about this village or its people, so he simply accepted it.
Based on the little evidence they had from their handful of hours in the town, Kali’s best guess was that most residents of Pontequest worked as craftspeople; they created clothing, jewelry, and other valuables to transport to other nearby towns in order to trade for food and other necessities. Their location in the Gogol was not conducive to growing crops nor raising livestock.
“Sounds like a shitty life,” Puk had said, which garnered no reply from Kali.
Bella was now curled up on her side, sleeping soundly with her shell pressed against the wall. Little snores escaped the ayote’s snout, and one of her claws twitched, scraping against wood. Her body alone took up half their space in the cramped room.
Kali was similarly curled on the opposite side of the room from Puk. She had absorbed plenty of sunlight during their journey from Weynard, so he knew she was not in desperate need of sustenance like him.
He licked his lips, dreaming of the dish he’d eaten at
Shiar’s Slumber with eggs poached in the spicy tomato mixture. Given the villagers’ approach to architecture, Puk ventured to guess that the most flavorful venture they embarked on was salting their meat. If even that.
He pushed himself up off the ground and groggily crept past their belongings piled in the middle of the room. As slowly and quietly as possible, he pushed the door open, and slipped out into the creepy barren hallway.
No one stalked the hall. He had no idea how early in the day it was, or to what sort of schedule any of these people adhered. Their demeanor had only grown colder toward the pair as the night wore on. Securing lodging had been dicey and uncomfortable; no one would show them where they could find dinner; everyone acted, simply put, hostile. It was obvious to Puk that the residents were doing everything in their power to make them leave, just short of physically shoving them out into the desert. A voice in his head told him to find the book as soon as possible and get the hell out of town. The place was deeply unsettling.
Puk shook off the shiver rattling down his spine and exited the bizarre warehouse, stepping out into the welcoming sun.
Never thought I’d be glad to get back out in the desert, he thought, amusing himself. Nonetheless, it was true.
His feet sunk into the sand, still cool from the night air. The sun was starting to appear over the horizon, casting a gentle warmth on the Gogol. The conditions were pleasant, for once. Puk nearly told himself he should wake up early more often, but then realized how crazy he sounded. Pontequest was already indoctrinating him. He shuddered at the terrible idea of becoming a habitual early riser.
Although, there was an appealing charm to the idea of playing his new duraga set against the sunrise. Plucking the taut strings, melodies dancing on the gentle air as dark melted into light. He did still need to workshop his “Flower and Qarm” tune…
Puk blinked himself out of the fantasy. Looking around, it appeared nobody else was awake yet. There was nobody walking about, and all the tent flaps were still closed. No activity.
He waddled around, taking in the town again, trying to pinpoint where he might acquire some grub once someone was actually awake to cook it for him, if he could somehow convince them to share. It would be a shame to have to eat jerky for breakfast, and after his pitiful dinner the night before, he was running low. Saving it for the trip back would be ideal. He was trying his best to avoid eating any more of the nasty dried cactus that had come stocked with Bella.
The stern of the ship held all the villagers’ storage space and craft rooms, while between the two halves of the ship was the camp. They had not yet visited the ship’s bow, and Puk wondered what it might hold. Surely not a high-class restaurant. But where did these people cook? What sort of food did they eat?
At the epicenter of all the tents, Puk noticed a slight dip in the sand surrounded by large stones. A place fit for a nightly bonfire. There was no wood visible anywhere, but a black mage could easily conjure a fire for the center of the pit. That had to be where they cooked all their food.
He could not fathom a life like this.
Living so far out, isolated from every major city. Cut off from major news or advancements or discoveries. Aside from how tough it’d be—their lack of resources was alarming, and it stressed him out thinking of relying solely on trade to survive—it also seemed incredibly boring.
He was a city boy, through and through. A man of the world. He needed to explore, needed to feel life all around him. The varied sights and sounds and smells of every city, their look and feel and culture uniquely different and setting them apart from all others. That was what brought him joy.
Pontequest, on the other hand, felt stagnant. Hollowed out. Dead.
But maybe that was too harsh. The residents probably loved it here, of course. Why else would they stay?
Kali’s lifestyle, traveling from city to city to trade her goods, was hugely appealing and not too far off from what he had been doing as a troupe member. Going from place to place, trading his songs in exchange for money. And then money for drugs.
Puk gaped at the cooled, empty bonfire pit for a few moments more, imagining meat on a stick sizzling over a licking flame. Then he rebuked himself, mentally lowering his own expectations for breakfast. It would probably be jerky in the end.
His eyestalks gazed upward at the inane town logo, painted surprisingly neatly on the boarded-over half of the ship displayed proudly in the air. If the weight of the ship ever shifted, it would fall down and crush all the tents and people below. Perhaps there were additional reinforcements somewhere, aside from the relocated mast, keeping it aloft; or maybe the townspeople had never considered that fate. Either way, Puk decided, it was not his problem. Another item on the ever-growing list of reasons why he would resolutely never move to Pontequest.
As he was staring at the red paint, contemplating the demise of the whole township, he realized there actually was a single person awake and outside. Someone who had become enraptured by the sunrise, just as he had.
They were sitting at the top of the slanted bow, the spot where it had broken in two, just above the painted symbol. Their body was facing away from Puk, regarding the open sea of desert on the other side.
The outfit they wore was strange. From what Puk could make out, they were dressed in a puffy green coat with oversized tan cuffs and a collar that stood straight up, completely covering the back of their neck. Atop their head was a tall, pointy brown hat that bent and drooped over its side.
Suffice to say, the outfit was certainly a choice. Something flamboyant that was more suited for a stage production than everyday wear. It was not the type of outfit someone would only own one of in their wardrobe; if a person owned a piece of clothing such as that, undoubtedly it was their distinctive personal style. But Puk had not seen anyone so notably dressed among the welcoming party yesterday. They would’ve stood out and been hard to forget.
Suddenly the person rose and brushed themselves off. They were short, no taller than a child or a qarm. They walked no more than a dozen steps down the tilted deck of the ship before vanishing out of thin air.
That’s probably noteworthy, thought Puk.
A person disappearing was not a typical happening. That seemed conspicuously like a red magic sort of thing.
There was a flutter in his chest, an excitement to report to Kali what he had witnessed.
Maybe they would accomplish getting out of Pontequest as quickly as they hoped to. Assuming they figured out some way to handle a red mage, anyway.
Waking up early had its advantages after all.
- -
After Puk told Kali his early morning tale, fighting through her yawns, she agreed that it sounded suspicious and likely had something to do with their elusive red mage Kleus.
They spent the remainder of the day milling about the drab town, holding short and mindless conversations with its denizens, who either responded to them with malice or mindlessness. If they didn’t have a particular goal here in town, Kali would have long since departed.
She felt guilty leaving Bella alone in that cramped space, and promised the ayote she’d take her out for a run later in the evening. Paul, who was shockingly the most pleasant person they’d met in spite of his dour attitude, told them he’d changed his mind and the price to rent the room had increased. Kali was thankfully able to talk him down a bit, though they were still paying more than originally agreed. She had very little leverage, and the citizens of Pontequest were nearly impossible to appease.
After a while, the duo decided to check out the interior of the ship’s other half. Secretly, they hoped to find the mysterious short figure ambling around somewhere inside. Puk assured her they wouldn’t be able to miss them.
But that never came to pass. There was no sign of the person as they walked around the tilted floors of the crashed airship. Unlike the other half where they had slept, this half had seemingly been left alone and not undergone any sort of renovation. The Pontequest’s original layout was
left fully intact.
The bottommost floor, where they entered, was home to a mess of machinery and engineering that was far beyond Kali’s comprehension. They stumbled around in the dark for ten or fifteen minutes, but almost every door was locked. Puk tugged on each cold metal handle with force and sighed with defeat every time. Only one room remained unlocked, but nothing of note was inside. Just unopened metal crates that had shifted and tumbled in the crash.
Above the drab engineering deck was a floor dedicated to the workers’ quarters and mess hall, and the floor above that held passengers’ cabins, a once-fancy dining room, and a smoking lounge, with exits to the open upper deck.
Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, long abandoned by the township. The air inside was stale and hot, drying out Kali’s throat. She had to guess Puk was feeling even worse.
“Why’d they not come in here?” he asked, voicing her own question. “Why pitch a bunch of shitty tents outside when there’s plenty of living space in here?”
It was a fair question. “Maybe it gets too overheated,” she suggested, the only reasonable thing that came to mind.
They were inspecting one of the passenger cabins, having already combed through the employee barracks, and still found no signs of life beyond the ship’s original passengers. Kali pulled open a drawer by the rumpled bedside and discovered a diary within.
Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2) Page 33