Treachery of Kings (7 page)

The Royal Balloon Grounds were a mix of human and Newlie alike. A crowd of Snouters leaped aside as Bucerius plowed through their ranks, scattering the fellows in his path. One went sprawling on his back, giving the others a hearty laugh.

They were stout, short creatures with ugly noses— noses that gave them their common name—beings with tiny pit eyes and scarcely any chins at all. Most wore the overalls of farmers, for this crew was bringing crates of vegetables and fruits to the balloons. To Finn's eyes, their merchandise was somewhat wilted and overripe, produce that shoppers in the market wouldn't buy.

Bullies, too, were all about, barely clad giants that loomed above the crowd, hefting loads of every sort upon their broad and muscled backs. Finn didn't fail to notice they all gave Bucerius a fierce and bitter glance, for his dress and manner said he didn't have to make a living with his back, the task so common to his kind.

Still, the Bullie was scarcely a dapper fellow in his plain, plaid trousers and worn high boots, but he did sport a butter-colored vest sewn with shells and shiny bits of
glass. A garment, Finn decided, several ordinary creatures could use for a tent, in case a storm should appear.

F
OR A MOMENT, FINN WAS UNAWARE THAT THEY'D
left the massive war balloons behind and come to a section of the grounds reserved for merchant craft. Here, balloons of every shape and size gathered to await the morning winds that would waft them on their way.

While the war balloons were drab, dun, dull as burned toast, as colorful as lint, the merchants used the vast surfaces of their craft to picture their wares, their names in graceful, cursive script, scenes of mountains and rivers, groves of sturdy trees, all in the tackiest, most lurid colors they could find. Finn was reminded at once of the carnival shows that came to town from time to time, gulling children and grown-ups alike.

Perhaps, he thought, such showmen took to balloons, once their acts had played too long on the ground. It was, he knew, a question he would keep to himself.

T
HERE WERE BALLOONS AGROUND HERE FROM
near and far, some from friendly lands, and some that clearly were not. Finn saw, in fact, three craft from Heldessia itself, loading wine and bolts of cloth, ready to catch the morning breeze.

And, no doubt, there were balloons from Fyxedia over there, ready to return upon the night.

“Ironic indeed,” Finn said aloud, to no one at all. “It's a sad and bitter thing that we hurl our cargoes of death at one another each and every day, as well as silk for ladies, and jars of thistle wine.”

And I
, he said only to himself,
I am risking life and limb to carry a blessed clock to Heldessia's King, whose warriors would slaughter me at will without the blink of a witless eye.

The world is a'tilt, I fear, and reason is spilling like syrup over its treacherous edge…

“Human person,” Bucerius said, his blunt features a mirror of disdain, “dream on your own time, but be lookin’ alive on mine!”

F
INN HAD MANACED TO SET HIS FEARS ASIDE, PUT
them out of sight, shove them in a corner in the attic of his mind. Now he faced a terrible moment of truth, for the sight before him was no mad fancy, but a real and awesome device. The instant he came near this horrid apparatus, he was sure he was looking at the instrument of his death.

In essence, the thing was a great, swollen sphere, some sixty feet in height, its bulk enclosed in something akin to a net. Attached to the sphere was a tangle of ropes, shrouds, pulleys and lines. And, below that, tethered by stakes and heavy cords, was the most frightening part of all: a wickerwork basket, much like the one where folk tossed their laundry for the wash. This basket, though, seemed scarcely large enough to hold a child, much less the bulk of Bucerius and himself.

“You are not serious, I presume,” Finn said. “You can't send us up in a crate like that.”

For the first time since they'd met, the Bullie grinned, a grin that spread his vivid coral lips to the cratered nostrils of his nose, to the wrinkles on his lightly furred skull that led to the faint suggestion of latent horns.

Finn prayed the Bullie would soon return to his grim demeanor, and never smile again.

“You be findin’ joy in the skies,” Bucerius said, fingering the ring in his nose. “Even a human person be havin’ the sense to see that. There's free up'n there. There isn't be free down here. They is only little shits like princes, an’ folk thinkin’ Newlies not good as nobody else. Thinkin’ Bullie got a strong back and nothin’ in his head.”

“I don't think that at all. Really, you mustn't feel I do.”

“You don’ talk.
I
talkin’ to
you.”
Bucerius made his point with a finger to Finn's chest, a finger the size of Finn's hand.

“You gots a nice Mycer girl. So you be smarter'n most human persons, I s'pose. You keeps bein’ smart, I be get-tin’ you over there an’ back. You acting dumb, like maybe you piss on yourself we gettin’ up there, you be dizzy or something, you maybe fallin’ out.”

“Wait a minute,” Finn said, “that sounds a lot like a threat to me. I don't care for that.”

“You think I gotta do a threat? Gotta scare you, little man?” Bucerius looked pained. “What I sayin’ is so. There be danger up there, you don't know what you doing. That's what I tellin’ you.

“They's even more danger you gets to Heldessia Land, I be sayin’ that. Them human persons be crazier'n the ones you got here. Meaner, too. Make that prince an’ his mushin’ and skinnin’ look like a bunch of chil'ren pullin’ legs offa ants. You want to be a-climbin’ inna basket now, you wanna be whinin’ down here? Whichever you doin’, be doin’ it pretty damn quick. …”

A
S THE SUN, WITH A FIERCE AND DOGGED
sense of will, heaved itself over the rim once more, as indigo faded to a blushing pansy blue, Finn, Master Lizard-Maker, late of County Ploone, now, truly, shorn of any grip on the precious earth at all, peered down upon the most fearsome, breathtaking sight he'd ever seen.

As if the day star had sounded a call, sent its brilliant heralds far and wide, the winds above the earth began to stir and come alive.

At first, a gentle breeze, playful puffs of air, then, of a sudden, hearty gusts that swept the balloon up high, high and higher still.

The wicker basket wobbled and the lines began to sing. Finn closed his eyes, thought of Letitia, thought of happy days that would never come again. Then, when he dared to face the world once more, he found he was mostly intact, though his stomach remained several hundred feet below.

Bucerius, along with many other merchants, had loosed the tethers of their craft only moments before the Easterlies arrived. Now, Finn saw the wisdom of this move. As if some trumpet had surely blown, all the plump and hefty monsters, all the great balloons of war, began to rise at once

“Great Socks and Rocks!” Finn said. “What a muddle, what a mess!”

Why the military should choose disorder as a plan, as a ploy, Finn couldn't say. The Bullie, though, working his pulleys and his lines, noted Finn's words with a rumble of disgust, deep within his chest.

The horde began to rise, swiftly now, upon the lofty winds. Ten, a dozen, twenty, fifty, more than Finn could count. Some like clumsy sausages, puffers, floaters, blind worms bobbing about. Some like swollen melons, ready to burst in the heat of the sun.

Each, and all, seemed distended this way and that. None could claim a color more enticing than mud. Each was a hodgepodge, a muddle of canvas, linen, and sacks, patches of calico, patches of pants.

And, ‘neath each of these behemoths, some a good hundred feet long, hung a tangle of webbing, a jumble of cords, a covey of baskets chock-full of pikemen, dragoons and fusiliers. Lancers, sappers, archers and doomed grenadiers.

Some of these craft carried loads so heavy they were lashed together in sixes and fours. Still, many seemed scarcely able to rise above the ground.

Even as Finn watched, two great bulbous creatures— seven gasbags in one, four in the other—collided some fifty feet above the ground. Lines tangled, baskets tipped, and spilled their hapless troopers about.

Finn closed his eyes against the sight, but he could still hear the screams, hear the rips and the tears as the great crafts tore themselves apart.

And this is the beginning, this is just the start. We've yet to even taste the war…

And, as confusion reigned supreme, as disorder held sway, Finn had visions of these bloaters, these lunks bobbing against the sooty pall below. As much as he wished the picture would go away, it was hard to dispell the image of a great, airborne sewer, with a multitude of turds all about. …

• • •

B
UCERIUS’ CRAFT, WHICH CARRIED NO CARCO AT
all, except for Finn's clock and a goodly stack of food, sailed well ahead of many of the merchants, and all of the cumbersome military craft.

Below, the River Gleen quickly gave way to the awesome Swamp of Bleak Demise, which stretched all the way to the Prince's foes, Heldessia Land. The swamp, as every schoolchild in each of the warring nations knew, was the reason both combatants had turned to balloons.

No army could cross the Swamp of Bleak Demise. If there was to be a war at all, it had to take place on reasonably solid ground. Thus, more than seven hundred years before, the lords of both domains had chosen the small, agricultural province of Melonius, an island of plenty surrounded by the swamp on every side, for their mutual battleground.

It was no longer known as Melonius, for the folk there had long been driven from their homes. There were no trees there, and no trace of crops of any sort. Now, it was a barren plain of death, where nothing, not even the hardiest weed, dared to grow.

F
INN HAD LITTLE DESIRE TO PEER OVER THE SIDE OF
the craft, for his stomach was yet to catch up with the rest of himself. And, when he chanced to look below, there was always the sight of tattered balloons that had not made it past the swamp or back. Many, Finn imagined, had rotted and disappeared into the darkness years before.

Toward noon, Bucerius brought out hard bread, a large wedge of odorous cheese, and a jar of stale beer. He offered to share with Finn. Finn was surprised, and grateful as well, for he had forgotten to bring the fatcakes and berry sandwiches Letitia had carefully prepared.

Though the Bullie had scarcely said a word since they'd begun, he seemed more amiable after his belly was full.

“I see you be lookin’ down there,” he said, shoving a whole pickled potato in his mouth. “It don't be a good idea to bother them what's down below.”

“And who would that be?” Finn asked, for he couldn't imagine who the fellow could mean.

“Coldies, what you think? There's seven hunnert years of the dead scattered round down there. Many a soldier's falled to his doom ‘tween here and where we be headed for.”

“I hadn't thought of the dead, though you're right as you can be. I think, though, if I were a Coldie, I wouldn't stay there. I'd get out of the Bleak Demise as quickly as I could. Get to a town, a decent city somewhere.”

Bucerius looked aghast. “You never
been
down there. Isn't no one be findin’ they way outta that. You dyin’ there, you stayin’ there. Even a human person ought to be knowin’ that.”

“I, ah—suppose. Though I've always found the dead like their comforts as well as the living do. And they clearly have plenty of time to search about. They've nothing else to do.”

Bucerius muttered under his breath, clearly not pleased with Finn's opinion on the matter. Finn had to remind himself that Bullies, by nature, found it offensive if others had opinions contrary to their own. Not unlike a great many beings of other races, as far as that was concerned.

When the meal was done, Bucerius tossed a few bites of food over the side, and Finn did the same. If any of the dead were down there, they would surely enjoy the essence, the emanation of these remains.

Finn knew it was likely better to leave things as they were, but there was little to do until they fell to their doom, and death was much upon his mind.

“You think, then, there is such a thing as the afterlife? You think we go somewhere else?”

Bucerius frowned. “What you be meaning? We just talkin’ ‘bout that.”

“I mean after you're a Coldie. After that.”

“Isn't no
after
that. You be dead, that's that.”

“Some say different. There's churches tell you there's a hereafter place to go.”

“Here after what?”

“Somewhere different. Somewhere you go after you're dead for a while. I talked to a Coldie once said it's so. Fellow used to be a barrister, so he might know. Said there's seers tell you if you act right after you're dead for a time, you can do something else.”