‘In a few more days,’ said Hrald, ‘we’ll reach land.’
‘Unless another really bad storm crops up,’ optimistically added Yazkool.
‘Then, we go inland,’ said H.
‘More exciting travel. How blissful.’
‘Yes, an interesting trip,’ said H.
It occurs to me, perhaps H and Y are less sarcastic and cruel than plain thick.
‘Why?’ I said again.
‘You’ll soon find out. Don’t be so concerned. You see the trouble we’ve gone to. You’re valuable, therefore valued. No one’s even stolen that gaudy diamond ring of yours.’
‘Then what do you get out of this?’ I inquired. ‘I mean, you’ve annoyed the Wolf Tower now, haven’t you? They had me captured, and you re-captured me. What about these Top People?’
‘Mmm,’ said H. He blew a smoke-ring. Typical.
Just then Y slipped an arm about me and I turned and slapped him really hard across his still-beautifully-shaven, rotten face.
Some sailors had come up from below and now went into great gouts of glee. The dark one with yellow hair called out something, which I think meant, ‘Hey, she bites!’
Which brought memories, and I got up and went to the cabin and shut myself in.
Ages after, when the sea was getting rough, again, and the sky and the window purplish, I thought, But why am I valuable?
No answer to that.
I started wondering again if Teil and Dagger, Ashti and Toy had got away from the other balloons and their riders. Then again I had that nagging unease.
How did the balloons know where to find me? Well, yes, they could have spotted the big Hulta camp from the air just by careful searching. But to come to the pool, where I was almost alone? Dagger had found the pool. Teil suggested we go there. Betrayal? Not Dagger. Not Teil. Not Toy or Ashti either. Ashti is Blurn’s girlfriend, and Blurn was my friend – Argul’s second-in-command and—
How can I be sure?
About anything.
In the finish, the ‘voyage’ just seemed as if it would never end. Then there was a really frightening storm. The sky went green as spinach. The sea was black.
Yazkool got seasick. It was one of my few moments of pleasure. Then I even felt a bit sorry for him. (There’s something wrong with me.)
The sailors were scared. They took in the sail and tied themselves to the mast or the helm. They weren’t swearing! Waves broke gigantic on the deck, and the men were baling water out in buckets, and then H came and pushed me back in the cabin and locked the door from the outside. I thought I’d probably drown.
Finally all the noise died down, and the sailors started swearing again.
When I was let out, the deck was still awash. The sea was now green, but the waves playful more than murderous. The sky was pure gold, thinking itself into after-storm sunset.
And there across all this vista, was a shadowy gilded hem on the sky’s lowest edge, that I thought was a cloud. Until I made out the sailor’s word (they apparently have one) for land.
Y was still heaving dedicatedly over the side.
H strolled up.
‘There you are, you see,’ he announced proudly, as if he’d done just what I’d begged him to.
We came ashore in our old chum, the leaky boat. Actually it almost sank just before we got to the beach.
I’d anticipated something else. In books I’d come across seaside docks and ports, with towns or villages attached. I’d thought the ship would go somewhere like that. It hadn’t. Also, we left the ship at dusk, and only the dark sailor with blond hair, who H and Y called Bat-Nose (!), and one other one, rowed us.
The land had faded from the light and grown black, with the sun vanishing behind it to the left. The sky was deep red, magenta, then quickly darkening. Stars sparkled out.
Above the sandy beach, which ran back and back, more than twenty man-heights-lying-down, was a forest. A wall of trees, where strange (bird?) calls sounded and then went quiet. I didn’t see much of all this, the light went so fast, or seemed to. But the forest didn’t look like any forest I’d seen, not in the Garden, or at Peshamba. More than luxuriant it was – fat.
Bat-Nose and the other one (I think he was called, in his own language, Charming) lit a fire. We sat down round it, all except Y, who was still sick and had fallen in a heap, refusing to talk.
On the sea, the ship twinkled a lamp at us, like a fallen star.
I looked at it dubiously.
Not that I was fond of the ship. But I’d got used to it. Physically too, the beach felt a bit roll-y. And where now?
I slept apart, rolled up in two blankets, though the night wasn’t cold, but I didn’t want to share the fire with them.
During the night I woke once. Something absolutely terrifying. A shadow-something was prowling along the beach. It looked rather like a lion, but paler, and with a sort of snake-skin-like patterning on its pelt that a young moon had risen to show me.
It went to the margin of the sea, and sniffed at the waves – or drank them or something, only they were salty … Then it glided back, and threaded through the sprawl of sleepers round the dying fire.
They’d been too lazy to set anyone to watch. Too smug. Too smug even to wake up and yell.
I wondered if the ghostly cat would attack them, but it didn’t. To me it paid no attention at all.
In the end it trotted back up the beach and vanished in the forest. Took me ages to doze again.
Next morning they were all in a flap, because
