Devel dragged the corpse to the edge of the sled, then the limb, and without ceremony, flipped it over the side. “To the soil again,” he said.
This seemed more than unusual and disrespectful, but I was later to learn this is their custom. When one of their number dies, and since they live in high cities and populate the trees, this is a common method. If they die on the ground, they are left where they fell. This treatment was considered an honor.
I processed this slowly but kept my composure. My survival might depend on it. I said, “May I ask who these men were and why they were trying to kill you?”
Jerrel glanced at Devel, said, “He chose to help us without question. He is bonded to us in blood.”
“True,” Devel said, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced.
Jerrel, however, decided to speak. “They are the Varnin. And we are warriors of Sheldan. Prince and princess, actually. We are going to their country, in pursuit of the talisman.”
“You’re warring over a trinket?” I said.
“It is far more than a trinket,” she said. “And since there are only us two, it is hardly a war.”
“I would call in reinforcements.”
She nodded. “If there were time, but there is not.”
She did not elaborate. We left it at that for the time being, and set about releasing the silver craft from the limbs where it had lodged. This seemed like a precarious job to me, but I helped them do it. The craft proved light as air. When it came loose of the limbs it didn’t fall, but began to hum and float. Devel climbed into the front-seat position, where the dead man had been, touched a silver rod, and the machine hummed louder than before.
Jerrel climbed into one of the seats behind him, said, “Come with us.”
Devel glanced at her.
“We can’t leave him,” she said. “He looks to be lost.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
“And he helped us when we needed it,” she said. “He risked his life.”
“We have our mission,” he said.
“We will find a safe place for him,” she said. “We still have a long distance to go. We can not just abandon him.”
This discussion had gone on as if I were not standing there. I said, “I would appreciate your taking me somewhere other than this tree.”
Devel nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced.
I stepped into the machine, took a seat. Devel looked back at me. I could tell this was a development he was not fond of, in spite of the fact I had taken their side in the fight.
But he said nothing. He turned forward, touched the rod. The machine growled softly, glided away through a cluster of leaves and limbs. I ducked so as not to be struck by them. When I looked up, the machine had risen high in the sky, above the tree line, up into the sunny blue. I was astonished. It was such a delicate and agile craft, so far ahead of what we had achieved back home. This made me consider that, interestingly enough, their understanding of firearms was far behind ours. There was a part of me that felt that it would be nice if it stayed that way. It seemed humans and bird-men were quite capable of doing enough damage with swords and axes. As for the pistol Devel had fired, he had discarded it as if it had been nothing more than a worn-out handkerchief.
I glanced over the side, saw below all manner of creatures. There were huge, leather-winged monsters flying beneath us and in the clear areas between the trees. On the ground in the rare open spaces I could see monstrous lizards of assorted colors. The beasts looked up at the sound of our humming machine, their mouths falling open as if in surprise, revealing great rows of massive teeth. We passed over hot, muddy lakes boiling and churning with heat. Huge snakes slithered through the mud and onto the land and into the trees. It was beautiful and frightening. In a short time I had survived the sinking of a great ocean liner, an uncommon arrival in a hot mud lake, climbed a tree to eat, found a fight against a yellow man with a strange talisman who was assisted by winged creatures, and had taken sides in the fight. Now, here I was, lost and confused, flying above massive trees in a featherlight craft at tremendous speed, my body feeling more amazing than ever, as if someone had split open my skin and stuck a twenty-year-old inside me. It made my head spin.
“Exactly where are you going?” I had to raise my voice to be heard above the wind.
“Perhaps it is best we do not speak of it,” Devel said. “You aided us, but our mission is personal. You know what you know about the talisman and need know no more.”
“Understood, but where are you taking me?”
“I am uncertain,” Devel said.
“Very well,” I said, not wishing to be put out of the craft and left to my own devices. I needed to try to stay with them as long as I could to learn more about this world. Here was better than wandering the forest below; how much better off remained to be seen. As an old sergeant told me around a wad of chewing tobacco once, “If you ain’t dead, you’re living, and that’s a good thing.” It was one of the few bits of advice he had given me I had taken to heart, as he was always jealous of my education, which he called white man’s talk. I had been blessed with a Cherokee mother who had learned reading and writing in white man’s schools and had become a teacher. She always said education didn’t belong to anyone other than the one who was willing to take it. She also said education was more than words and marks on paper. She taught me the customs of the Cherokee, taught me tracking, about living in the wild. All the things I might need to survive.
That said, I preferred the comfort of the flying sled to the rawness of the wild world below. This way I had time to consider and plan, though I must admit my considerations and planning were not accomplishing a lot. It was more as if wheels were spinning inside my head but wouldn’t gain traction.
Besides, let me be entirely honest. The woman was why I wanted to remain. I was smitten. Those green eyes were like cool pools and I wanted to dive right into them. I wanted to believe there had been some kind of connection on her part, but considering my current appearance the only person or thing that might love me was a hog that had mistaken me for a puddle to wallow in.
I can’t say how long we flew, but I feel certain it was hours. I know that exhaustion claimed me after a while, the cool wind blowing against me, me snug in my seat. I might have felt better and stronger, but I had swum in the cold ocean, pulled myself from a hot mud pit, climbed a great tree, and fought a great fight, so I was tired. I drifted asleep for a while.
When I awoke the sun had dipped low in the sky, and so had we. We were coasting down between large gaps in the great trees. We came to trees so huge they would have dwarfed the redwoods of home. There was even one with shadowy gaps in it the size of small caves.
That’s when I saw that nearly all the trees had large gaps in them, from head to foot. It was part of their natural construct. As the sun finally set, we flew into one of those tight wooden caverns, Devel parked his airship, and we stepped out.
The night was dark as in the inside of a hole. No moon was visible. What stars there were made a thin light. But then, as I stood there looking out of the gap, soaking in the night, an amazing thing happened. It was as if there was suddenly dust in the air, and the dust glowed. I was confused for a moment, then some of the dust landed on me. It wasn’t dust at all, but little bugs that were as silver as the flying sled, shinier. The entire night was filled with them. They gave a glow to everything, bright as the missing moonlight.
I should pause here and jump ahead with something I later learned. There was no moonlight because there was no moon. This world was without one. Of all the things I had trouble getting used to, that was the one that most pained me. No bright coin of light coasting along in the night sky. In place of it were glowing insects, lovely in their own way, but they could not replace in my mind the moon that circled Earth.