by Nathan Long
Sai motioned to the dark beyond our low fire and said the Aarurrh equivalent of “I gotta go drain the lizard.”
Tweedledee and Tweedledum exchanged a look, then waved him off. He wasn’t the one they were worried about. He shuffled off. The Aarurrh didn’t lie down again, but after a bit they tucked their legs under themselves and set down their weapons, talking quietly. I figured that was as good a chance as I was going to get.
I rolled onto my stomach and gradually got into a pushup position, pointed directly where Sai had disappeared. I prayed that the fire between me and the Aarurrh was hiding some of what I was doing. My heart was pounding like the subwoofers on a cholo’s Chevy. Now or never. I pushed up, got a leg under me and launched like a sprinter coming off the blocks.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum yelped. I could hear them clattering to their feet. I didn’t look back.
I landed fifteen feet from my launch point. Sai was tucked behind a rock the size of a toll booth. A spear whizzed by my shoulder and chipped sparks off a rock wall beside me. The heavy thud of paws shook the ground.
I flinched to Sai’s side. “Come on, fancy boy! Mount up!”
Yeah, okay, I’d fantasized about saying that to him before, but in slightly different circumstances. He hopped on my back and I leaped for the stars. I didn’t make it.
That first leap wasn’t so good. I didn’t adjust for Sai’s weight, and ended up tripping on a refrigerator-sized rock I meant to go over. Luckily we crashed down into the shadows on the far side and the Aarurrh thundered past.
I got up with bleeding scrapes all down my left arm and hip. Sai didn’t have a scratch on him, the fucker. I’d broken his fall.
The Aarurrh spotted us again as soon as I made my next leap, but I had the balance down this time and stuck my landing, a rock ledge higher than they could reach. They tossed their spears, but I jumped away and hopped from rock to rock like a mountain goat, staying off the ground entirely as Sai shouted directions in my ear.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum tried to keep me in sight, but the monoliths were a maze. They had to swing around huge blocks and double back from dead ends that I floated over.
Now I knew why Queenie had told us to wait until we got here to make our escape. This was the perfect place for someone who could leap to get away from someone who could run. On the plains the Aarurrh’s bolos would have brought me down before I got a hundred yards. Here I lost them in seconds. Suckers.
I touched down by the uklan’s head and looked around, nervous. All this was going to be for nothing if the kids weren’t here to do their part.
We heard footfalls behind us and spun, terrified that it was Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Kitten and Handsome came out of the Uklan’s shadow.
Handsome motioned to us. “Hurry!”
We ran to them. They hauled us onto their backs and started galloping hell-for-leather down the hill toward the moonlit plains. Behind us we heard the frustrated howls of Tweedles Dee and Dum echoing from inside the maze of rocks.
We didn’t stop running until daylight. I drifted in and out of sleep on Handsome’s back and I’m pretty sure Sai did the same on Kitten’s. I had a dream where I was back on the Greyhound my first time running away, trying to get comfortable lying against the window with the metal frame vibrating against my forehead and the skanky guy in the seat next to me breathing tuna salad all over me as he told me how he’d personally killed Pol Pot back in Nam.
I woke up feeling a slightly seasick when I felt Handsome slowing down. My head had been bumping against a buckle on one of his sword straps. Not exactly where I wanted to wake up, but better than that Greyhound.
The landscape had changed. It was hillier and lusher. There were twisty little bushes with dusty blue leaves, and tall aspen-like things that I thought were trees until I got closer and saw that they were more like giant, stretched-out pine cones.
We stopped at a stream and Handsome and Kitten gulped down water, sides heaving. Sai and I dismounted and had a drink and a splash ourselves. When the kids caught their breath they lead us up a path to a pass between hills that looked over a fertile river valley.
Handsome waved a paw. “Tae land. You safe there.”
It was a landscape painting on acid. A patchwork quilt of fields straight out of a Jolly Green Giant commercial, except with purple plants, pink and safety-orange bushes, crayon-red dirt roads, a glint of river between bushy trees with black leaves, clusters of little six-sided huts, and far off in the distance a bulky castle, sandstone orange, all under a Pepsi-blue sky. It hurt my eyes.
Handsome turned to me. “Sorry you must run, back then. I want to kill Aarurrh men, but chief can’t know we help you.”
“Isn’t he gonna guess? How are you gonna explain being missing from camp?”
Handsome and Kitten exchanged a sly glance. Handsome grinned and said an Aarurrh word I didn’t understand. I frowned and turned to Sai. He looked embarrassed.
“Er... honeymoon.”
I laughed and grinned back at Handsome. I swear he and Kitten were blushing under their fur.
After that we had a little food. Then the kids gave us some lovely parting gifts. Handsome undid his pack and took out the battle gear I’d worn in my fight with One-Eye. He’d even gone to the trouble of banging out the dent in the shin guard. Before I could thank him he’d unslung one of his swords and handed it to me, hilt first. “You have sharp eye. Now you have sharp claw too.”
It was the sword he’d whittled down for me, but he’d smoothed out his rough hack job on the handle and wrapped it with new leather braiding. It fit my hand like it was made for me.
I was embarrassed. “Aw, man, Handsome—I mean, Raohah—this is great. I don’t know what to say.”
“You do favor for I. Say nothing.”
I guess I’d solved his romance problems for him, but still.
“Well, thanks anyway. You already did plenty helping us get away and letting us ride on your backs. Now, how the hell do I wear this thing without tripping over it every five seconds?”
Sai wasn’t quite as happy with his gifts. Kitten had brought him a bunch of froofy clothes, as usual not all male, and was happily trying to help him decide which to wear.
Sai tried to be diplomatic. “Thank you, mistress Murrah. But this really isn’t necessary. Yes, very beautiful, but perhaps not practical for... Er, I’m afraid I don’t have the correct anatomy for that particular...”
Finally he gave up. “Mistress, forgive me. These clothes are much too beautiful for me to make a rash decision now. With your permission, I will take all and decide later which to keep. Clothes as fine as these should not be worn for hard travel. I will continue to wear this sturdy shift for the rest of our journey and save these treasures for some grand occasion.”
Kitten blinked. I knew just how she felt. Sometimes Sai used so many words you didn’t know what he was saying. “Take all?”
Sai bowed like a maitre’d. “If that accords with your wishes.”
Kitten giggled, sounding like a cat trying to swallow a fish bone sideways, and gave him a goodbye hug that made him squeak. I offered Handsome my hand. He’d never seen the gesture before, but got the hang of it when I took his paw and shook it. He shook back and nearly ripped my arm off.
Finally Sai and I waved goodbye and trudged down the path toward the psychedelic farmland as Handsome and Kitten started heading back to the plains, with plenty of “honeymoon” stops along the way, I’m guessing.
CHAPTER TEN
CIVILIZATION!
We were halfway down the hill before Sai remembered what I looked like. After so much time together wearing nothing but dirty loincloths he’d started taking me for granted. Now with civilization only a mile away, it occurred to him that he was walking with a giant, half-naked pink chick whose boobs were peeking out from under her armor.
He stopped. “Mistress Jae-En, er...”
“What’s up?”
“Er, below us are the lands of my people. Civiliz
ed lands. You cannot... ’Tisn’t proper for you to... We must make you decent.”
He started digging through Kitten’s scraps, looking for something that fit. The only thing that came close was a flimsy, green peignoir kind of thing that must have originally been worn by the Waar version of the half ton German soprano. It hung around my waist like a muumuu and didn’t make it all the way to my knees.
“I ain’t wearin’ this. I look like Sophie Tucker.”
“Mistress, once we are among friends, I will find you more suitable raiment, but until then naught else will cover your... your...” He motioned helplessly at my height and general hugeness.
I smirked. “Go on silver-tongue, see if you can end that sentence without me clobberin’ you.”
“Er, your... statuesque proportions.”
I grinned. “Nice save, bubba. Alright, I’ll wear it, but you gotta let me fix it up a bit.”
“As you will, mistress.”
He didn’t say anything when I ripped the muumuu’s sleeves off, or when I cinched the waist tight with a belt, but when I started strapping the armor on over it he had conniptions. “Mistress, please, in Ora a lady does not fight. She neither bears arms nor wears armor. It would be unseemly to appear in Oran society this way.”
I turned on him. “Was it unseemly when I killed One-Eye and bought our way out of camp? Was it unseemly when I threw you over my shoulder and leapfrogged our asses away from those cannibal killers back there?”
Sai backed off. “I...”
I stayed nose to nose with him. “I don’t trust this planet. Ass-kickings happen way too frequently around here for my liking. You say it’s civilized down there? Well, until I see a 7-Eleven and a Kentucky Fried Chicken I ain’t takin’ any chances. I’m keepin’ the armor and the sword, and if you don’t like it I’ll be glad to take you back to the Aarurrh and you can fight your own way out of the stew pot.”
“Mistress Jae-En, forgive me. I meant no slight. You have been the soul of valor and are entitled to wear anything you please. I merely hoped to save you the embarrassment of becoming a spectacle. Dressed this way, you may be stared at, even mocked.”
I snorted. “Sai, look at me. I ain’t exactly gonna blend in with the crowd down at the local bar and grill no matter what I wear.” Then I got it. “Wait. You’re not worried about me. You think you’re going to be mocked. You don’t want to be seen with me.”
Sai opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He didn’t know where to look. “I... I...”
Poor little idiot. He looked so pathetic I couldn’t hold on to my mad. All of a sudden I wanted to cuddle him and pet his little head, among other things. I sighed. “Aw Sai, I ain’t mad at you. I just feel safer with this stuff on, okay.”
He tried a smile. “I... I shouldn’t have thought that you would be afraid of anything, Mistress.”
I laughed. “I’m a million light-years from home, bro. I’m afraid of everything.”
***
Sai was right. We got plenty of stares. And no wonder. We looked like a comedy act. I could have passed for a halfback at a toga party, and Sai looked like the movie poster for “Male Models in Distress.” Slogging down the long, red dirt roads, we caught all kinds of gapes and gawks from the local yokels. It reminded me of my punk rock days, with my green mohawk and black lips, asking the normals, “What are you looking at?” And not getting the irony at all.
The hicks were poking what looked like short sections of bamboo into the dry dirt of the fields that spread out around us.
I pointed. “What are those?”
Sai looked around. “Lasi shoots. They grow into tall stalks with delicious leaves. A perfect compliment for krae meat.”
“Huh. You cook too?”
“I? Cooking is servant’s work.”
“That so? You got somebody to wash your back for you too?”
Sai was insulted. “I left the nursery years ago, Mistress.”
***
After a while we came to a bunch of the little hexagonal huts huddled around a well. There weren’t any shops, so I’m not going to call it a town. The huts were covered in piss-yellow plaster, with beam ends sticking out through the walls. Single room huts were one hexagon. Bigger places were a bunch of hexagons stuck together. Dirty purple kids in grimy smocks stared at me like a tree had walked into town. Scrawny purple women peered out through glassless windows and made the same touching the eyes and mouth gesture Sai had made when he first saw me.
Sai got a couple doors closed in his face at first. It steamed him up. “Peasants! Know they not a Dhan when they see one?”
“Maybe if you scraped off a couple layers of dirt.”
When the villagers realized we weren’t leaving until someone talked to us, a scared, scarred old hard-case with a bulldog face and working man’s muscles came out holding a hoe like it was a spear. He was looking at me as much as he was at Sai.
“What want ye here?”
Sai glared him up and down. “Do you threaten me, lout? I am Dhan Sai-Far, son of Shen-Far, Dhanan of Sensa. Lower your weapon.”
The hick’s jaw dropped. “A... a Dhan? But...” He shot another look at Sai’s loincloth, then a scared one at me.
Sai went livid. “Dare you insult me as well? A Dhan wears what he chooses. And travels with who he chooses.”
The attitude did it. The hick dropped the hoe and did the bow-and-crossed-wrists gesture as fast as he could. Poor guy. How could he expect to meet the upper crust out here in East Bumfuck. “Beg pardon, sir Dhan. Us blind, sir Dhan, not to see it.”
Now that he’d had his ass properly kissed, Sai relented. “Come now, enough. Rise, please. I mean you no ill. My temper has been frayed by recent adventures. Merely tell me whose lands these are and we will no longer trouble you.”
I stared at Sai, my jaw almost as slack as the hick’s. I’d never seen him like this. Our whole time with the Aarurrh he’d either been mopey and suicidal, or terrified and apologetic. Now that we were on his home turf he was suddenly all lord-of-the-manor. Not even his ratty hair and dirty rags could hide it.
He had the whole village bowing and scraping in five minutes. He knew where we were and where we should go. He also managed to talk the hicks out of a skin of water and some dry little cakes that tasted like the paste I wasn’t supposed to eat in kindergarten. We hit the trail again, this time with a spring in our step.
Sai was smiling like a Hare Krishna. “These are the lands of Dhanan Zhae-Gar. I have not the honor of his acquaintance, but by incredible good fortune, I am best of friends with the scion of the Dhanan whose lands border these. If Lhan-Lar is home we will be welcome and safe.”
I had to burn brain cells to unravel all that. “So, you don’t know this guy, but we’re going to your buddy’s dad’s place, which is next door.”
“Succinctly put, Mistress Jae-En.”
“Thanks. It’s a gift.” We walked a few more steps. “Uh, Sai?”
“Mistress?”
“What’s this mean? I saw the villagers doing it.” I did the touching the eyes and mouth thing.
Sai looked embarrassed. “It means ‘I do not see and will not speak.’ One makes the sign when one sees something unholy. ’Tis one of the commandments of the seven not to see or speak of evil.”
“Evil, huh?”
“They mistook you for a demon, as I did, mistress. Take no offence.”
“None taken.” I was used to scaring hicks. Back home a bunch of bikers rolling into some little burg always had the locals slamming doors.
***
Getting to the place next door took another day. These Oran nobles had estates like Texans have ranches. We passed through endless fields and countless little clumps of houses. Most of the time we traveled on the little red dirt roads, but once we came across a highway that looked like the Ventura Freeway—eight lanes wide and made of rubbery gray stuff without any seams or potholes in it. It was smoother than the highway to Vegas.
Looking down that long
, straight stretch made me ache to have my old Harley between my legs; traveling down a wide open road, new countryside to explore. If only Big Don was here riding beside me, seeing all this. Suddenly I had another ache. Big Don would have loved this. While the other bros would just roar from rally to rally, Big Don would pull off the road now and then, just to look at the scenery.
We met like that, actually. Up in the Dakotas. I thought he was broken down. He told me to turn off my bike and listen to the night. I thought he was crazy. Then I heard the wolves howling and fell for him like a ton of bricks.
Poor Don. Even if I got back to Earth, I still couldn’t have brought him here, not unless Sai’s people had some kind of magic that could bring a man back from being a hundred yard smear of red under a speeding semi.
I swallowed. My throat was rough. Fucker. For a dead guy, Don sure had a hell of a long reach.
Sai seemed to think the road was something special too. He touched it with his finger tips before we stepped up on it, then touched those fingers to his heart and forehead.
I frowned and poked at the road surface. Hard as a Super Ball. “Damn. What is this thing, Sai?”
He turned. “This is the road to Ormolu.”
“Yeah, okay, but I mean what’s the deal with it. You guys never built this. You haven’t even gotten around to inventing flintlocks or sliced bread.”
Sai looked insulted. “You suggest that mere tae built this wonder? This is a gift of the Seven. We are blessed merely by walking upon it.” He made the chest to forehead gesture again.
I’d heard him mention the Seven a few times back in the Aarurrh camp. I’d figured them for the local gods and forgot about ’em, but no gods back on Earth had ever come across with a turnpike.
“Who are the Seven?”
He gave me a strange look. “You truly are from far away, Mistress Jae-En. The Seven are Ora’s gods, who made this world and all that is in it. They made the sky and the land, the Tae and the beasts, the roads and the Seven temples, the holy weapons and divine relics.”