Neal Barrett Jr - Treachery of Kings

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.

For 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.

There 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!”

Finn 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…”

As 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.