(eng) Michael Shea by In Yana the Touch of Undying

Author:In Yana, the Touch of Undying [In Yana, the Touch of Undying]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

Transport by Means of an Amorous Ogre

“What was the name of that fifth town south of Polypolis? That one where the killing-slope was so dark because they seeded the Shlubbups’ beds with purple dye pellets?”

“You mean where they made ‘Scanlion Purple, the Prince of Peels’ as that sign had it?”

“Scanlion! Of course!” Hex spat into his inkwell—a dead leaf wedged in the grass he sat on—and sprinkled in more ink powder. He scratched anew on his parchments—spread on his notepouch, which he’d laid on his lap for a desk.

Sarf stood watching him a moment. His look, though not unmixed with affection, was one of sour, disbelieving humour. He went back to his work. Since the grassy gorge they had been following all day grew cold once the fading sun deserted it—as had the others on both previous days—he was gathering droppings for a fire. These—big, dry skats that littered the gorge just here—he stockpiled under a large outcropping of the gully’s wall. As he picked up each patty, from where he stood he flung it, saucer-like, at the loose pile accumulating under the overhang.

“You know, Bramt Hex,” he said as he worked. “You sit there snug as a hog in mud. With your notes for a map of someplace we’ve been. And what we need to figure out is where we are exactly, and where we can go.”

“We’re going south. Till we get somewhere, what more can we know? Meantime I might as well get some work done.”

Somehow the reasonable answer made Sarf madder. True enough, since they didn’t want to enter either Slimshur or the Satrapies, and the two together bulked uncircumventably to the north—and since, moreover, both had heard that a week south of Hismin was a populous stretch of coast not wholly hostile to strangers, they could only wind south through these hills as they had been doing. But Sarf was very hungry, and this for him sharpened the already keen bite of the cold.

“We should be planning, Hex! Grant we reach some town—how are we to find our feet in it? What are they going to make of me with this iron belt on me? And don’t look so smug. You’re still lardy enough that it’s easy for you to be casual, but I’m starving, and these damned wild onions are worse than nothing at all!”

Hex looked up, stung. Last night, on the end of their second day in the hills, he’d been able to wiggle out of the eyeleted waistband by which he’d been linked to Forb’s master chain. Sarf’s, fit to a middle lacking excess, stayed in place. Hex, having begun to dream of an heroic transfiguration, now heard truth in his friend’s sneer.

“You followed this lardy frame fast enough when it led you to your life, Sarf Immlé, And if you think I’m not famished—”

“I’m not trying to insult you! But just look at your state of mind! You’re feverish maybe—who knows? But your mind just isn’t in the grim here-and-now, it’s off in cloud palaces.

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