World Enough, and Time. FastPencil Premiere

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      It was dark inside. Moon glow filtered through slats in the walls, throwing distorted images around the circular room. Most of the floor was taken up by a large ancient generator that ran lines out to the main house and up to the top of the windmill to the driveshaft.

      That’s where the Accident was: dangling by the neck from the severed drive chain that connected the big fan blades to the turbine generator on the floor. He was dying. Josh climbed up the ladder and cut him free. The horrible creature tumbled to the floor.

      They knelt by his broken body.

      “Uluglu domo,” said the Accident. His belly was torn open, the mark of a Griffin.

      Josh looked at Beauty. “You know their language?”

      Beauty nodded. “Domo dulo,” he said to the Accident. “Odo glutamo nol?”

      The ugly creature opened his eye for the first time and looked at his stalkers. “Ologlu Bal,” he said, coughing blood. “Bal ongamo, ayrie gludemos, oglo Bal endamo.”

      Beauty nodded. “Nglimo tu? Nagena gli asta log nak.”

      “Glumpata Bal o Scree tudama gluanda.”

      “Ednatu?” said Beauty.

      “Glisanda nef. Riaglo tor” said the beast. “Ologlu Bal, ologlu lev Scree. Gor. Gor.” And with that, he died.

      “What did he say?” asked Josh.

      “He said he was betrayed by his friends, a Vampire named Bal and a broke-beak Griffin named Scree. They met him here, and they killed him.”

      “Did he know where they went?” Joshua no longer had any thoughts, good or bad, for the Accident. His mind now focused entirely on Bal and Scree.

      “They went south. Scree lives in Ma’gas at the edge of the rain forest. The pirate city. Bal lives south of that. They have Humans with them, tied in a cart, but only Bal knew where they were being taken. This one did only what Bal told him. He hopes we kill them now. He said his name was Gor and he was glad to die, for life is a river of pain.”

      They were silent a few moments. There was a sound behind them, and they turned. Isis, the Cat, stood in the doorway. She tipped her head behind her, indicating the big house, and said, “Yarrrrl.”

      Josh went to the door and looked. Four lanterns bobbed toward him, midway between the mill and the house. “Jarl’s men,” said Joshua. “We’d better leave.”

      They slipped out the door as inconspicuously as possible, but the moon snagged them. Voices amid the lanterns shouted: “There, in the windmill!” “Saboteurs! Get them!”

      Josh jumped on Beauty’s back. “Run over the hill in the open, then circle around to the back of the house.”

      “Why go back?” asked the Centaur.

      “I have to get Meli. She may be in trouble.”

      Isis slipped into the night. Beauty galloped over the hill, the soldiers’ shouts and snarls getting more distant with every stride. He made a wide circle in the shadow of the trees, doubled back to the house, and stood under Meli’s window. Josh got a foothold in some ivy and started scaling the brothel.

      He was almost to Meli’s window when the sounds of commotion rose at the windmill. “Murder!” “A dead Accident!” “The Centaur was with someone!” “After them!”

      Josh felt the ledge to Meli’s window and hoisted himself up. Through the glass he saw her. She sat, naked, in the lap of a Mongolian Vampire. With one hand she reached up behind her, stroking his pale cheek; with the other, she reached down between her legs and stroked his insistence. His right hand reached around to her chest, rolled her tightening nipple with his long-nailed forefinger. Her head was tilted to the side, her eyes half-closed.

      He buried his teeth deep in her neck; cherry-black blood trickled down to her shoulder. Her eyes opened, with a gasp.

      She saw Joshua’s face at the window, like an apparition. She brought her finger up to her lips – “Shhh” – and imperceptibly shook her head. Her face was mischief and resignation together, inviting Joshua’s complicity. Joshua backed down the side of the house.

      He hopped on Beauty’s back. Jarl’s soldiers were raising a posse. Whoops, oaths, and growls could be heard. Madam said, “I knew that boy was trouble.”

      Beauty galloped off in the opposite direction from the way the soldiers had first seen him leave, and he didn’t stop running for quite a while.

      They weren’t just hunters, now, they were hunted.

      In Which The Company Doubles And Finds A Mascot

      THEY ran for two hours, first south, then east, then southwest. They made it to the seaside as the moon dipped under the horizon and ran through the salty surf for an hour before finding a place where a tumble of rocks spilled into the ocean from the cliffs above. Up this stony spine they climbed, leaving no trail. They walked east again, along creek beds and game paths for still another hour, not resting until they found a cave at the edge of a small wood, just as the false dawn fluttered her eyes. They slept until late morning.

      The evening cool burned off slowly. When Josh awoke, he found himself nestled along Beauty’s furry belly, curled against the cold. He stood, shaking off sleep, then stood still cocking his head, listening for anything the forest might be able to tell him.

      The forest said much. The wind in the treetops was from the west, bad for tracking. A wood-pecker rapped out a lunchtime tune. A chorus of crickets entertained themselves. Audience-shy, they halted their performance if anyone showed up for the show. The lighting was dappled greens and browns. Joshua never tired of it.

      He took out some paper from one of his Scribe-tubes and assiduously covered it with small script from his quill, recording the events that had led them to this point. He tried to set the record in this way at least once a day, though he knew the Word was forgiving of lapses. When the writing was done, Joshua rolled up the paper and returned it to the Scribe-tube secured inside his boot. “The Word is great, the Word is One,” he said.

      Beauty arose, shook all over, and managed to provoke a jay into squawking at him for a full minute. When the blue, mad Bird finally flew off self-righteously, Josh looked over to Beauty and said, “Well?”

      “Well, we need not worry about Jarl’s toads. If they pick up our trail, it will not be soon. We will be quit of this land.”

      “That’s only half a well,” said Joshua. “We’re on a cold trail ourselves.”

      “We know they headed south,” said the Centaur.

      “South is a big place.”

      “We could head direct for Ma’gas where the Griffin lives.”

      “We don’t know they’re going there. And I’d rather catch up before they get that far.”

      Beauty agreed. СКАЧАТЬ