by Rick Johnson
“But don’t you want out of here?” Emil asked.
“Yes or no, depending on the question,” NeyMooz answered. “If we’re looking for the best in the end of things, which is our way, are we better off if we leave? Are you better off, having taken over Tilk Duraow and probably stirred the High One to a fury never before seen? Seems to me, we both have our odd and evens, ups and downs. Right now, sittin’ here eatin’ my fill of Curly Pike, with the mountain breeze clear and pure, I might be better off just sittin’ here, rather than stirrin’ up the High One. Pickin’ a fight with Tilk Duraow and its kind doesn’t look very invitin’. If we’ve found a good life pickin’ the best out of the worst, why should we want to look even deeper into a bigger worst to see what’s there? Sure they call us barogre, but they never come here. Since I never go where they are, what’s the good of me callin’ them some other nasty name I make up? Lookin’ to my odds and evens, I think I might prefer sittin’ here right now, to where you’re goin’.”
“You mean that when we return to Tilk Duraow, you would just as soon stay here, as if we’d never come?” Emil asked.
“Now don’t get your feelin’s all messed,” NeyMooz said. “You’re all favories here—never one of you goin’ to be anything but a favory with us. But, lookin’ for the best in the end of things—for all these beasts here—I’ll take my odds and evens here, and you take yours pickin’ a fight with the High One.”
“I told NeyMooz about our plan to escape Tilk Duraow through the Offaluvia,” Emil said, looking at Helga. “But he doesn’t think that’s a good idea.”
“If you come through here, the High One’s brazzens will come after you—and make mincemeat out of us in the bargain. No, please go some other way. We’ve never bothered anyone and they’ve let us alone. We want to leave it that way.”
“I think our plans have changed anyway,” Helga said. Wanting to change the subject, she said, “Are those boats?” she asked, pointing to a large number of odd boat-shaped objects lined up along the riverbank.
“Those are gusher canoes,” the Horse answered. “That’s how we get upstream for fishing.”
“How do they work?” Emil asked.
“After we eat, I’ll show you,” NeyMooz replied.
They continued talking until all had stuffed themselves on Curly Pike, boulder spuds, and wild onions. By the time they finished, Helga was feeling an urgent need to return to Tilk Duraow. Emil, however, insisted on learning about the gusher canoe first.
“All right,” she said, “but we’ve got to get moving if we’re going get back to Tilk Duraow before dark. It’s really slow going.”
“Ten minutes,” Emil promised, “ten minutes is all we need.”
They followed NeyMooz over to the canoes. “The main difference between a gusher canoe and a regular canoe,” he said, “is that the gusher is able to go either by paddling or by screw power. If you look inside the canoe, you see a number of seats with hand cranks in front of them. The cranks make a screw turn inside a cylinder built into the bottom of the canoe. That sucks in water and shoots it out through a nozzle at the back. The gusher of water propels the canoe.”
Turning the canoe on its side, he showed them that the bottom of the canoe looked like any other, but there was an opening at the rear. “That’s the nozzle,” NeyMooz said. “A crew of beasts cranking the screw generates a gusher out the rear, that can power a canoe even against a strong current. It’s much better and easier on the crew than paddling. With paddles, some energy gets lost with each stroke, because the water flows around the paddle. But with the screw, all the cranks send power to the screw and more propulsion is generated.”
“And it goes upstream that way?” Helga asked.
“It’s actually better going upstream than a regular canoe,” NeyMooz said. “The river has so many rocks and other obstacles—but in the spring and summer, when the river runs high, and the gusher canoe is running full speed, it just skims the top of the water and misses most of the stones. We harden the wood in the fire, and cover the bottom with a layer of pounded scrap metal, so it’s almost impossible to crack it. We get out there on the river, get the cranks rolling and fly up the river.”
“Do you ever run the canoes downstream?” Helga asked.
“No, that’s too dangerous,” the Horse replied. “The river flows in the chasm around Tilk Duraow, then plunges underground directly underneath it. We’d have Skull Buzzards all over us if we tried that. No—we’re happy just going upstream to fish.”
“Well, the canoes are fantastic!” Emil exclaimed. “You make these from Offaluvia junk?”
“Yep,” NeyMooz said with a smile. “They may consider us lower than spider vomit, but we’ve never been stupid.”
“I really wish we had time to ride in one,” Emil declared. Seeing Helga’s exasterated look, he added, “but maybe later.”
“Let’s get back home first,” Helga said. “Wherever that is.”
As they left East o’Non, Helga asked Bem if she had noticed anything familiar about the Horse and the other beasts at the settlement.
“Yes, I’d swear I knew him from somewhere,” Bem replied, “except that I’m pretty sure I haven’t. I agree that there’s something about him—the slight accent in the voice, or a turn of phrase in his speech—I know it from somewhere. But I’ve sailed so many seas and lived among so many different clans, I can’t place it.”
“Neither can I,” Helga mused, “neither can I.”
A Plan
At Tilk Duraow, it took much of the night to get all the former slaves moved out of the dank cell-blocks to the open air of the parade ground. As slaves arrived at the parade ground, work teams were orgranized. The huge group had to be fed and settled until they could leave Tilk Duraow. Helga had not yet returned from her mission into the Offaluvia, and her lateness concerned Klemés. He shrugged it off, however, telling himself and others that it was not an easy journey.
With workman-like determination, every able-bodied beast pitched in to help with the feeding and settling in. It was a mammoth task. Tremendous amounts of food had to be transported, fires tended, water provided, and the sick and injured cared for. But willing help was available on all sides. After opening the Midge Reserves and organizing the transport of provisions to the parade ground, Tē’d’Tē pulled Klemés aside.
“What is it?” Klemés asked.
“Come with me,” Tē’d’Tē replied, motioning for the Wood Cow to follow. “Things are moving along well enough for now. Self-organization will suffice for a little while. But, you and I need to work on the real thing.”
When they were out of hearing distance of the other creatures, Tē’d’Tē continued, “You and I both know that there is only a little time to make plans for what happens next. As soon as everyone is fed—perhaps even while they are eating—they will want to know what we plan to do. If we do not have a plan, it will be chaos. Chaos, with us still inside Tilk Duraow, will create fear. Panic may follow. Neither of us wants to imagine two thousand panicked beasts—especially in our current circumstances.”
“Yes, we’re in great danger,” Klemés agreed. “Things have gone much too fast for our planning to keep up. Now we need to catch up as fast as we can. What do you propose?”
“Come with me to the Subintendent’s Office,” the Weasel responded. “In my late night investigations, over the past weeks, I’ve been studying the maps here. I see some possibilities. I’d like you to take a look also. You have more experience than any of us, and I trust in your wisdom. By the time everyone is fed and settled, Helga will have returned with the others, and we can decide what to do. But we can’t afford to wait any longer to begin exploring possible plans.”
Klemés looked at his old fellow-sufferer, thinking how much they had come to rely on one another in a short time. “The Ancients grant that I’m worthy of your trust,” he said quietly.
“We depend on each other,” the Weasel replied. “I could depend on no better beast.”
“Yar!” Klemés said. “And in the end our success will depend on every one of our comrades.”
“Few things depend on what we know,” Tē’d’Tē said with a smile. “It mostly depends on trusting we can learn in time to avoid disaster. I’m just trusting that among all of us, we’ll learn fast enough.”
When they reached the Subintendent’s Office, Tē’d’Tē asked Klemés about something unusal that she’d noticed in her visits to the place. “You seem to know everything about how this place is built, so tell me why this office looks odd.”
“You mean that the walls don’t seem to quite match and the floor is uneven? That’s because Tilk Duraow was not all built at one time. It’s been expanded again and again over the centuries. That used to be an outer wall over there, but now it’s an interior wall. You see stuff like that all over around here.”
“Interesting,” the Weasel replied.
“It’s more than interesting,” Klemés said. “It’s the key to me being able to get escapees out of here.”
“What?” Tē’d’Tē said with surprise.
“Let’s just say that some of the designers and builders were better than others,” Klemés chuckled. “When some of the additions were made, either the plans were badly drawn or the builders were incompetent. There’s places where the walls don’t fit together—huge gaps, essentially passageways that weren’t meant to be there. Only a maintenance beast like me, who knows the building well, would ever know they are there.”
“Amazing!” Tē’d’Tē exclaimed.
“Not really,” the Wood Cow said. “This place is centuries old. Pretty easy to forget about things. Besides, so long as the stones keep moving to Maev Astuté, they don’t mind a few escapes. It’d take too much time and attention to stop a trickle of escapees. No one thinks about such things unless there’s a reason. So long as the stones keep moving, no one has a reason to care much. I guess I was the first beast to both know the construction mistakes were there, and have a reason to care.”
“Thank you for caring,” Tē’d’Tē said. “I’ve never been able to properly thank you for helping me and others escape this place.”
“Don’t mention it,” Klemés answered. “I realized what I could do, and did it, that’s all.”
“No one else knows about the passages?” Tē’d’Tē asked.
“Not that I’m aware,” Klemés responded. “You really have to know this place stone by stone, and no one cares that much. I’m the only one who knows, and no one suspects crazy old Klemés.”
“Amazing,” Tē’d’Tē repeated.
“No, it’s not,” Klemés replied. “How many things do you think it might be nice for you to do, that you don’t? Same thing with this. Important always loses to More Important.”
The Subintendent’s office had a massive oak table in the center of the room. A large window looked out over the chasm surrounding the fortress. On the broad window sill stood a telescope, with a spyglass lying beside it. An array of maps and drawings were spread out on the table, with string, wax, pins and drawing pens scattered about them.
“What’s to be done?” Klemés asked, as the Weasel opened a large map on the table.
“See here,” Tē’d’Tē said, pointing at the map. “This is Tilk Duraow. You see the main caravan road—and there’s the entrance across the Bridge of No Return. From the documents I’ve found, that’s the way most of the traffic and troops move to and from here. For our purposes, that’s a route to avoid.”
“So you’re looking at those smaller roads?” Klemés asked, tracing some other lines across the map.
“No, not those either. What I’m thinking about is the Ice-Cutting Trail,” the Weasel said, tracing one of the faintest lines on the map. “The only purpose of that trail is for workers who go high in the mountains to cut ice to cool the Midge Reserves. According to the records I’ve seen, that happens every six weeks, and the last ice-cutting trip was about two weeks ago. So the trail should be empty now. We may be able to slip across there without encountering trouble.”
“I like the idea,” Klemés observed, “but just for sake of a thought experiment, are there any other possible routes?”
“Any of the other roads feed off of the Bridge of No Return,” Tē’d’Tē explained. “Those routes either have regular Skull Buzzard patrols, or soon will have.”
“What if we were to avoid all established roads and trails?” Klemés asked. “What about striking out across the Offaluvia like Helga suggested? They might not expect that.”
“We will have more than two-thousand beasts,” Tē’d’Tē said. “There’s no way we could conceal a trail like that across open ground. We need to follow an established route where the movement of a large group won’t be so obvious. The Ice-Cutting Trail is perfect for that. It moves mostly across solid rock—virtually no tracks, no dust clouds. And we need an established path so we know where we’ll end up and can move fast.”
“Looks like, with luck, we could end up on the far northern seacoast,” Klemés observed.
“That’s the place my plan gets a little sketchy, the Weasel replied. “The map shows the Ice-Cutting Trail clearly a long way up in the mountains, but then it’s not clear where it goes.”
“That’s just great,” Klemés sighed. “So we get two-thousand beasts way up in the mountains and then don’t know what to do with them?”
“It’s not that bad,” Tē’d’Tē replied. “I’m not afraid of the mountains. I ended up in Tilk Duraow because—well, let’s just say, I spent a little too much time teaching up in those mountains.”
“Teaching?” Klemés exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were a teacher! Does teaching get you thrown in Tilk Duraow these days?”
“Depends on what you’re teaching,” Tē’d’Tē said grimly. “I was trying to open the eyes of young beasts up there—get them to think for themselves, not just blindly follow the traditions of their ancestors, like that stupid sacred climb.”
“I see how that could get you in some trouble with the High One,” Klemés said with a smile.
“If you have enough beasts willing to blindly follow unjust customs and habits,” Tē’d’Tē said fiercely, “you no longer have living creatures, but a dead machine. All I was trying to do was be a little friction in the machine parts.”
“I’m not disagreeing,” Klemés said, “just observing that I’m not surprised to meet you in this place. Sounds like you know the northern coast?”
“Yes, I don’t know the exact area where the Ice-Cutting Trail plays out, but I know enough about the area up there to find sympathetic friends who will help us.”
“Next stop for us, the Ice-Cutting Trail,” Klemés said.
“That’s it, unless you want to take a chance on the Plummet,” Tē’d’Tē laughed.
“The Plummet?” Klemés said.
“Why sure,” Tē’d’Tē replied. “one of the old maps over there on the shelf says that in ancient times, when the Granite Hulks were first worked for stone, the only way into what is now Tilk Duraow was through the Plummet.”
“Well, ful’oon my wits!” Klemés said, “not even I had heard of that!”
“That was in the days before they stocked the Plummet with sharks to feed this place,” Tē’d’Tē explained. “But the route is still there, just unused. I mention it only because that route would take us inland, rather than to the coast, and it’s not used much anymore. There’s better slaving routes now.”
“Sounds like we’d need boats,” Klemés said.
“Unless you want to swim a shark-filled lake, not to mention the river later on,” Tē’d’Tē replied. “I don’t see us moving two-thousand beasts in boats. I think the Ice-Cutting Trail is our only real hope.”
“I’m convinced,” Klemés said. “And having a choice, I’d rather not swim with sharks.”
Colonel Snart
As the night’s chill and damp increased, the pain in ThunderUp’s burned paws and arms also grew. Not having eaten sin
ce morning, he was also hungry. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small tin container. Taking off the lid and tipping the container, he flicked several orange-chocolate-colored ticks into his open paw. Opening his mouth, one by one he popped in the wriggling insects and chewed them up. Wrackshees carried tins of the orange-chocolate ticks—known as Jut Bolo—as high energy snacks when they were doing heavy work. A pawful of Jut Bolo staved off hunger for several hours. And because the smoky, super-hot taste made eyes water, throat sizzle, and head involuntarily twitch for a time, fatigue was forgotten. ThunderUp knew he would not be eating a meal anytime soon, so he ate two giant pawfuls.
Savoring the almost immediate surge of energy the ticks provided, and pulling his clothes as tightly around him as he could, he maintained his post observing the creatures below. At last, however, the pain became so intense that he began to feel woozy—a very dangerous condition when one is more than a hundred feet above the ground!
In the darkness, he carefully ascended the Tilk Duraow roof nearest to the chimney where he had been sitting. Reaching the ridge of the roof, he followed the ridge line, knowing that would be the safest way to reach the Derrorem Spike. The high spiked-shaped tower served as Tilk Duraow’s supply depot. Supplies and materials of all types were stored there. “If I can just reach the Spike,” ThunderUp thought, “perhaps I’ll be able to find a way to slip inside and get some bandages for my burns. I’m no good with paws I can’t use.”
Painfully inching his way along, he was thankful for the deep darkness of the night, that kept his movement concealed from any prying eyes. Following the faithful ridge line to the Derrorem Spike, he moved toward a faint light glinting from the otherwise dark tower.
Pulling himself to a standing position on the roof ridge, he examined the light source that was now just inches above his head. Realizing it was a ventilation grid, he began testing it for strength. Grimacing against the pain, he steadily increased the pressure on the vent, hoping to break it open. Again and again, he gritted his teeth as pain shot through his paws. Despite the sharp pain, he kept increasing the pressure. The stone grate was beginning to move. “Belonga is stronger than pain!” he thought. “Belonga is in my guts! Belonga is my help and nothing will stop me.” With one more angonizing push, he threw every ounce of his massive strength at the vent. “Belonga! Belonga! BELONGA!” A scraping sound, a crack of stone, and the vent blew apart, pieces flying inside the Spike.