Rolls of landscape, soft with distance, but down – and down – below. And the vast moving sky, with clouds like cauliflower blowing up over there, where the plain looked oddly flat and shiny—
It was choppy, riding in the balloon. I hadn’t noticed that either, except as part of the general awfulness.
Above roared the fire-gas thing that powered the balloon. There was one more man in the basket, shifting some contraption about (like a boat-driver) to guide the balloon, probably. I didn’t understand it.
Even though I’d brightened a bit, I was hardly light-hearted or very observant. But I now noted one of the other mushroom balloons, which looked miles away. We must be going quite fast?
I felt rather queasy, but it wasn’t air-sickness, more shock.
‘I must say,’ Hrald must-said, ‘I was surprised you took all that, Chospa. I mean, the way the old bag ranted on at you.’
Even I was astonished. Chospa gaped. Old bag – Ironel!!!
‘She’s the Keeper of the Law,’ gaped Chospa.
‘Yeah, well. But she went too far. Disgraced you. What happened was her fault, too.’
‘Definitely not fair,’ agreed the other one, Yazkool.
Chospa shrugged, turned away. He now looked blank and mechanical again.
I saw Hrald and Yazkool exchange a glance. Hrald shook his head, seeming to say, Don’t let’s upset him any more.
The balloon-driver – ballooneer I think they call them – had looked round too. He was a short bearded man, and he gave an ugly grin. That was all.
I didn’t think much about this, or anything. I was glad as I stopped feeling sick. Also concentrated on seeming resigned and meek, in case there’d be any unlikely chance later to get away.
Sometimes it felt hot in the balloon, and then chilly. We were in a chilly phase when Chospa suddenly barked out, ‘Tell that fool to watch what he’s doing!’
‘Oh, he’s all right.’
‘Are you blind? We’re going over too far east—’ and Chospa shouted at the ballooneer, ‘Pull her round, you moron. The City’s that way!’
‘Calm down, Chos,’ said Hrald, in a matey voice. ‘Trust me, it’s fine.’
‘What is this?’ shouted Chospa.
‘Oh, we’re just,’ said Hrald, idling across the bumpy balloon-basket, ‘going to do something, er, first—’ and then he reached Chospa and punched him whack on the jaw. Chospa tumbled over and the basket plunged and the ballooneer cursed us all.
As we bucketed about the sky, the land dipping, clouds dipping, sun turning over, I saw we were also much lower, and that shining flat plain was gleaming everywhere to one side. It must be the sea?
Chospa rolled against me and I stared in alarm at his poor unconscious face, with the bruise already coming up like a ripe plum.
Yazkool laughed, seeing me worrying.
Hrald only said, ‘Bring us down over there, that stand of pines.’
‘They always want miracles,’ muttered the ballooneer.
And then the air-gas-fire was making ghastly dragon-belches and we seemed to be dropping like a stone.
All around the sky was empty of anything – but sky. The other two balloons were completely out of sight.
The ground came rushing up and I thought we’d all just be killed, and was too frightened even to be sick after all, and then we landed with a bump that rattled everything, including my bones and poor old Chospa.
Well, we were fairly near the pines …
Next thing I knew, they were dragging me out of the basket. Yazkool unfortunately was securely tying my wrists together.
‘There’s the sea,’ pointed out Hrald, still apparently determined for me not to miss any of the travel or sightseeing opportunities.
Beyond the hill slope we’d crash-landed on, and between the black poles of the ragged pines, a silver mass gushed and crawled. Chunks of it constantly hit together and burst in white fringes.
Argul would have shown me that. Helped me make sense of it.
It was now cold, or I felt cold. The clouds were swarming in the sky, bigger and darker and bigger.
The mushroom-pod of the balloon seemed to be deflating. No one did anything about Chospa, just let him lie there on his back.
‘Then where are they?’ demanded the ballooneer.
‘Don’t bother your pretty little head about it,’ said Hrald. ‘We’ve made good time.’
The ballooneer scowled but said nothing else. Yazkool produced a pair of nail-scissors and began neatly to trim his nails.
The wind blew, hard and spiky from the sea. I wanted to get out of the wind, so sat down, with hand-tied awkwardness, against one of the pines.
I didn’t realize even then that harsh, silver-salt wind was going to be my constant companion for quite some time to come.
About half an hour later, some wild men came trudging up the hill.
They’d called the Hulta ‘barbarians’, as I’d have expected City people would. These really did look barbaric. Their clothes were all colours, all patched, mis-matched, too bright or faded, and all filthy. They had rings through their ears, their noses, their eyebrows, lips, teeth, and beads plaited in hair, moustaches and beards. Several had one shoe or boot different to the other. There were a lot of knives, clubs and nasty-looking catapult things.
They spoke another language, too, which only Hrald seemed to have any idea of. One of them, who was dark but with very yellow hair, spoke a bit of the language the City speaks, that language I suppose is also mine.
No one mentioned me.
I had the strangest feeling that I had nothing to do with any of this. I tried to merge into the tree, but of course that was silly. Yazkool presently came and pulled me up, and I was marched down with the others towards the silver waves.
They’re going to drown me, I decided. It’s some new quaint ritual.
I’m sacrifice-material, obviously. I mean, the Sheepers saw that at once, and gave me to the Feather Tribe, who meant to sling me off a cliff. As for Jizania and Nemian, I was the best sacrifice of all to them. My life was barter for their royal lives, in
