by A. L. Brooks
‘Should we not land?’ Gargaron urged the mekanik. ‘There may be others down there, as I were, seeking salvation.’
Sparks gushed from the mekanik’s neck plates. ‘Th-theeeeerrr be none l-l-l-left, leeeeeeft. N-none at aaaaalll…’
Hearing this squeezed Gargaron’s heart but still he felt he ought to search. After everything he had laid eye upon, all the death and dying, he would not give over to the idea that all folk but he had perished. ‘No, I do not believe that. How do you possibly know?’
‘I have means of sensing the living. And I sense none in these settlements.’ The voice were unhindered again, as if once more it were Hawkmoth the sorcerer speaking.
What has become of this world? Gargaron murmured to himself. Ranethor, Thronir, someone pray tell.
3
Occasionally he attempted to strike up conversations with the mekanik. Wanting to know if the sorcerer could hear him, if Hawkmoth had some means of communicating across great distances, hoping perhaps he might consult the sorcerer through the mekanik. But the answers were either perfunctory or garbled or made little sense. ‘How far need we fly before we reach Hawkmoth?’ Gargaron asked with a sigh, resigning himself to the fact that he would receive no sensible, honest or sentient counsel nor any sort of companionship, fulfilling or otherwise, until he reached the sorcerer or some other such sod with a soul.
‘We muuuuust traverse beyonnnnd, beyond Thoonsk. Aaaand crossss the Muuurdered Seeea… Not untiiil M-Melus and Gohooor again hang directly over our h-heads shaaaaall we reeeach Barrow Hillll upon which the Dead Maaan sits and watches aaaaall. There innn, innnn his cottage, Mastaer Haaawkmoth resides.’
Through night and half a day, Gargaron reckoned. He resigned himself to the idea they would be nowhere near the good sorcerer in quick time. He decided then to settle in for a lengthy flight. As he turned away from the metal man the old man’s voice came again from the grill plate in mekanik’s neck: ‘Should you and your mount require sustenance, I have packed provisions. Please find all you require in the galley. Enjoy your flight. See you on the morrow, my friend.’
‘Sorcerer?’ Gargaron said at the mekanik. ‘Do you hear me?’
Alas, there came no response.
4
He found smoked eel and pickled eggs and cured ham and crusty bread, he found fruits of apple, pear and grapes. For the steed there were oats but Gargaron let him have his fill of the apples, saying, ‘I did promise you the king’s share of apples, after all, didn’t I?’ There were even a selection of mash-smoke: Greenshroom, Striped Dream, Funnel Skrite, Pink-Duste.
Although he had indulged in such in his younger years, he had abstained for much of his married life. But now he grabbed a poke and laid himself down on one of the felt lined lounges. He stuffed the cone on the floor mounted pipe, lit the weed with the available flint-flare, grabbed the hose and prod the sucker between his lips and drew back on the thick musky smoke. Grimah lay there, munching apples, its two faces regarding Gargaron curiously.
Gargaron tipped the pipe at him. ‘To us,’ he said and sucked back more smoke.
As Melus and Gohor began to drip down into the horizon, the night fires began to twinkle in Great Nothing and Gargaron’s thoughts slipped away for a little while as mash-smoke fairies danced along the gunwales.
5
Morning broke and Gargaron awoke to both an aching head and a troubling noise. He sat up, bleary eyed. His steed were awake he saw, standing, and looking concerned. Gargaron stood up, unsteady on foot, and saw the mekanik feverishly wheeling pulleys and hand cranks, he heard the hiss and gush of gas heaving into balloon, he felt the zeppelin climbing sharply. Indeed when he looked over the side he realised they were considerably higher from ground than they had been before he had bedded down for night.
He strode forward and gazed westways. Before him the lay of land had changed. Thoonsk, he guessed, beautiful green water glades, were spread out before them now beneath a soft layer of dawn mist, curving across land from south to northways. But what caught his sight were not the pretty scene of morning sunbeams cast across the watery woodlands but the hideous wave rolling across the distant treetops, surging from northways’n’west to southways’n’east, on and onwards toward zeppelin.
It were somehow beautiful, in its own frightening way. To see it from such a vantage. But there were no time to stand and admire it.
He knew instantly what were coming their way: a shockwave like those he had twice experienced since that fateful morn on the banks of Buccuyashuck.
‘Are we safe from it up here?’ he asked the mekanik.
Metal man replied not.
‘Are we safe here, I ask?’ Gargaron pressed.
A coughing, grunting sound burped up from the chest of the metal man. ‘Th-theeeeeey haaave detonated… anoth-another Boom.’ Sparks spurt from the mekanik’s face grill as its metal fingers worked furiously at the rudder, turning zeppelin southways, all the while taking it ever higher from ground.
‘Boom?’ Gargaron asked. ‘Of who do you speak? What be this Boom?’
But the mekanik had no time to reply. The invisible shockwave smashed into them at a terrifying rate.
6
The craft pitched, balloon and cage rolled over, spilling Gargaron, his steed and anything not tied down or secured to craft, wildly to port. Objects toppled out over the side, and with them, scrabbling futilely with its mighty hooves, went Grimah…
Gargaron lunged desperately after him. But he were too late. Out his horse tumbled, whaling, squealing, smashing against the black steel propeller unit, rending it free, both horse and mechanical device out and over, and gone.
Gargaron clung horrified to mast, but the shudder that gripped the craft shook him loose and he fell heavily away, smashing into portside bulwark. The air coughed from his lungs. Wincing, gasping, he looked about, not even certain how he were still on deck and not thrown after Grimah. The mekanik he saw were still strapped in its pilot’s seat, its head lolled sickly to one side, sparks and green flame spurting and spitting from its neck grill and its eyes madly flickering blue and yellow.
Slowly the balloon began to right itself, elevating again, bringing the craft level but accompanying it came a splitting, cracking noise and Gargaron looked up in time to witness the mast itself rupturing, threatening to snap away from the gondola.
He gripped the gunwale, eyeing the mast, willing it to hold. Only to hear the whinnying cries of his steed. He frowned. Were he hearing things? The whinnying came again.
Gripping the deck he rolled carefully to his side and set his eye out over the edge.
Somehow Grimah hung there by one of its necks, snared by its bridle that had miraculously knotted itself around one of the gunwale’s horn cleats.
Gargaron felt a surge of relief that Grimah were uninjured, that it had not yet fallen to its death. But desperation pushed him now, and with a surge of blood he reached out over edge of ship and gripped the horse’s bridle.
It took all of his strength to haul the horse back to craft’s side. But to drag steed, with all its bulk and weight, back upon deck, he knew would take more strength than he could muster. Yet, Grimah surprised him, proving his worth as only a true steed trained in war and crisis could. With his own strength, with his own natural instincts of self-preservation, he kicked out his forelegs and managed to hook them over gunwale, and aided by the giant, he managed to clamber back to relative safety.
Once Grimah were back on deck, with the mast bent at an awkward angle, with the ship lolling, and rudder stuck sending the zeppelin on a rotating course, Gargaron scrambled to the unmoving mekanik.
He gripped it and shook it, minding the flames roaring from its neck. ‘Awaken, you godawful thing!’
But it did not.
In the far northwun Gargaron now spotted the vast front of a second shockwave rolling out across Thoonsk’s lush canopy. It would be here in a matter of minutes. He either had to escape its claws by climbing further into sky, or land the z
eppelin and ride out the shockwave at ground level. He already knew what would be best. Further elevation had made no difference trying to escape the first wave. He had to get this thing to ground.
In all his life Gargaron had never ridden a zeppelin. Let alone flown one. Yet, he unbelted the mekanik and shoved it aside. It were still fizzing and aflame, its arm in spasms as it tumbled to the decking. Gargaron studied the flight console. It were a dizzying array of levers, cranks, pulleys, gas pods, dials.
‘Blast this!’ he growled, yanking on the leavers that he had observed the mekanik working, hoping desperately to purge gas from the balloon, hoping to halt the propeller mechanism still operating, hoping that something would give them safe yet rapid descent. But perhaps the first shockwave had damaged controls, or ruptured the hosing as green liquid now squirted wildly across the deck. And although escaping gas hissed and spat, the craft were not heading for ground. At least not as quick as Gargaron wished it. He saw no other choice now. He withdrew his great sword and yelled at his steed, ‘If you comprehend, horse, then hold something! Tight.’
Grimah appeared to understand. Or else he were once more simply enacting self-preservation measures; he began shifting his two heads and around and around so that the reigns clung to the bollard upon which the mooring lines were secured. Wasting not another second, Gargaron ran and jumped at the balloon, slicing its side, dicing through the cage’s bony fingers. Instantly gas screeched from the puncture and instantly the craft began to spiral downward.
7
Gargaron were tossed across decks, sliding toward aft, centrifugal force thrusting him outwards as the airship spun, his hands and arms flailing, desperate to catch hold of anything that would secure him to the falling airship.
But here, the second shockwave hit.
The mast splintered, the balloon shot back in the drag, marginally slowing the craft until the mast severed for good. Balloon and mast spun off out of sight and the airship plummeted like a stone.
8
Mostly, woodland and water cushioned their fall. But the impact into the treetops of Thoonsk tore the zeppelin apart. Branches of the water forest erupted, snapped and cracked and bits of the zeppelin flung away in a thousand directions, and Gargaron, steed and mekanik were flung off into tree tops, smashing through foliage like cannon balls, ripping away branch and leaf until the tepid lagoons swallowed them up in mighty explosions of water and lilies and roots and sunkwood snags.
The sounds of trees falling, of scattered branches clip-clopping down amidst bough and trunk and plummeting into water, the rain of a trillion leaves fluttering down through the woodland, the sound of the shockwave rolling away yonder, could all be heard for a little while… and then silence.
MELAI OF THOONSK
1
SHE watched the peculiar skyship fall and disintegrate as it slammed spinning into treetops. She watched the strange beasts that tumbled from it: the two-headed horse of immense proportions, the metal man in a wash of green fire, and the Rjoond giant.
This Rjoond splashed heavily amidst the water snails, narrowly missing their mighty spiraling shells, like the humps of slumbering river monsters, jutting above water’s surface. Snake orchid tendrils bent from bough and branch toward him, writhing blue stamens inside bright olive-purple flowers licking the air, tasting the new arrivals. Bug eyed swamp cats took to treetops as the skyship impacted and tore apart; there they perched, chittering excitedly amongst themselves, gazing down at the big, stupid Rjoond lying there in the reeds and lilies groaning. The headless Buccas climbed down from nests of bone root to inspect this Rjoond only to be startled by his loyal two-faced horse crashing through sodden undergrowth toward him, thus they scrambled back up to safety of the canopy.
Melai Willowborne hid high up in bushy bough as the Rjoond pulled himself into a seated position. Water dripped down his face she saw, water weed and lilies clung to his head and chest. His two-headed steed stood protectively nearby, looking about, sniffing the water, searching for signs of danger. She wondered how keen its senses were. If it might intuit her presence. She watched it closely. It had not yet looked her way… but she felt it were but a matter of time.
She did not move as the giant rubbed the back of his neck, rubbed his elbow, and looked around, a grimace upon his face. She saw he and horse both were cut and grazed and bruised, strange purplish blood from Rjoond, red from the horse, dripping down and fanning out in Thoonsk’s clear water.
Rjoond rolled his head from side to side, gazed up into the canopy to perhaps measure how far he had fallen. He then looked around as if searching for any part of his downed skyship.
You will have a job, Melai thought. Your craft, all of its shattered pieces, sunk and swallowed, belong now to mother Thoonsk.
If he were also searching for his metal man, then she alone could have told him: she had spied it break in two, one part shooting southways as the ship splintered into a thousand pieces, the other tumbling straight down, sunk into the cool depths of her lagoon. Even now, from her vantage, if she looked carefully she could spy its strange, blinking lights beneath the ripples, and the ungodly spurt of its green fire.
She would offer up no such secrets to the Rjoond giant however. For she knew, with his warhorse and his armoured battle-droyd, that he had come here to slay her.
‘Kill me,’ she whispered to the still air, ‘oh Rjoond of Never. Kill me if you can. And ought you be quick and sure about it, if this be your plan. For, one of us shall die before the day is through. And it shan’t be I.’
Her bow, Sera’s Child, were slung across her chest. And a quiver of magic tipped arrows strapped on her hip. For now she would content herself with observing this great oaf. Perhaps he would drown down a hidden sinkhole. Or his face eaten off by a flesh leech. Or at day’s end she would fill him with enough poison to topple a swamp mammoth. Whatever the case, at his moment of death she would present herself to him and let him understand that this were justice for the grief he had brought down upon her and her kin.
2
She watched him pull himself to his feet. He stumbled backward, obviously dizzy. She smiled as he fell rump first into the water. He reached for the nearest tree to drag his face from the water again, spitting, coughing. He spoke words to his horse, words she could not hear. The horse snorted, its nostrils vibrating vigorously, its ears back, both necks outstretched. She felt that it sensed her now. It looked about, this time into the tree tops. She remained oh so still, drawing on the colours and textures of bark and leaf, absorbing the scenery around her. It had not spied her but it knew something were watching.
The Rjoond seemed to pick up on this, turning his stiffened neck to survey the area the horse appeared concerned with. Were I to move, she thought, you would see me, oafish Rjoond. Yet I shall not give you the pleasure.
He stood for a while gazing into treetops. Eventually it must have wearied him for he trudged to what he thought were an island on which to free himself of lagoon’s waters, but it turned out to be the shell hump of a marine snail. He backed away from it lest it prove hostile. She frowned. Does he not know that his evil magic is killing it?
He found higher ground on mounds of deadfall, pulling himself up out of the lagoon at last; though the mound sagged with his weight.
Melai grinned too herself. If this oaf hopes to find dry ground, his hopes be dashed. Except for the old stone road built three hundred years ago by the invading Rjoond’s of Darkk 5, (those whose sieges had come to an abrupt end when wrath of Thoonsk rose up and drowned them in killer walls of relentless pounding water) there were no solid or high ground in this area of the water forest. Still, that roadway were some way off. And if that were the way he were planning to head then she, for her own amusement, would make certain he never reached it.
3
He sat upon the twisted, knotted deadfall heap for a lengthy period. Still gathering his senses she assumed. He continued to appear dazed, disoriented, lost. It brought another smile to her soft gree
n lips. And the fact that he were cut and slashed warmed her heart. So Rjoonds do bleed, she mused. And so shall you also die, Rjoond pig. By my hand.
One particular gash on his upper arm wept profusely. He noticed it not for some time. Not until his steed nudged him and the Rjoond broke from whatever tormented thoughts ate at him and looked first at his horse before noticing purple blood dripping from his elbow, pooling amidst yellow lichen and flaky brown bark and red moss. It made her smile all the more, for blood would draw up the flesh worms that resided in rotting wood, waiting for some passing beast to screw themselves into. Blood, with any luck, would also draw out the spined basilisk from its den. That would be a decent show, she wagered. Rjoond giant versus Thoonsk’s mighty unvanquished basilisk. This day gets better with each passing moment.
She watched him as he sat there looking about. She assumed he may have been searching for something to staunch his blood loss, or something that had perhaps recently been on his person, a medicinal kit maybe, or some other sort of belonging. But she were happy to see, in spite of his searching, that he went without the item of his desire.
Still, it intrigued her, what he did next. He hefted up the hem of his leather jerkin, exposing belly and ribs. The muscle there were taut, no paunch. But below the line of his ribs there existed two or three rounded welts of raised flesh. From one of these he peeled away what looked to be a circular strip of skin. The Rjoond then placed this over his gaping wound and, grimacing, held it there in place for several moments. When he’d removed his hand he gazed at the patch of flesh, perhaps looking to see if his measures had proven effective or not.