Chapter 15

Sausages, floating in the air. It didn’t seem possible. Yet, there they were, proving me wrong.

We gained altitude and dunes and the angry mob slipped away beneath us as we swayed gently in the shimmering air.

“Drakeforth…”

“I have no idea,” he replied.

“Balloons!”

“Bless you.”

“No, it’s balloons. Lots of balloons, tied together. “Interesting.” Drakeforth stared at the horizon.

We hung beneath a net of hundreds of sausage-shaped balloons. It would have been more impressive, if the only thing stopping us plummeting to a certain death wasn’t a creaking cord of braided leather.

The blood rushed to my head until I felt sure keeping my eyes closed was all that stopped them popping out of their sockets.

“Is there someone we can talk to?” I asked.

“What about?”

“Oh, you know, the weather… The price of tea in Chandallah. Nothing important.”

“And yet the weather is the most important factor of the price of tea in Chandallah. If the growing season has been too dry, the nature of the tea crop will be entirely different than if there has been higher-than-average rainfall, and this will impact the price.”

“How have I lived this long without knowing that?” I wanted to fold my arms, to really drive home how utterly unnecessary Drakeforth’s explanation was. Except vertigo meant I didn’t know which way to fold my arms against gravity, and I ended up smacking myself in the face. “Oww!”

I heard the zipping sound of something sliding down the leather rope, and then the strong smell of someone who probably couldn’t describe the inside of a shower cabinet from memory.

Through watering eyes, I made out a blurred shape. He was naked and very hairy, or wearing clothing made from half-cured skins.

“Should we go inside?” he asked.

“You need to put us down! Right now!”

“No, after you. I insist,” he said.

“Let us go, or I’ll skin you alive,” I smiled sweetly.

“Does anyone have a torch?”

“Down. Now.” Using vocal techniques to influence outcomes is harder than you would think when you are hanging upside down.

“I suppose we have to go down. If we go up, we won’t have gone anywhere.” He waved his hands in the air and the rope around my ankles started to wind up.

Our captor rose beside me, chattering constantly. Most of what he was saying made no sense. I focused my attention on tracking Drakeforth, who was uncharacteristically silent as we were elevated into the belly of a sausage balloon.

Hairy hands landed me like a trophy fish on a wooden deck, and the leather rope loosened from my ankles.

Drakeforth thudded down beside me, and the skin-wearing man bounced over him and removed the bonds around his legs.

“Any chance of a cup of tea?” Drakeforth asked, sitting up.

“I’d settle for an explanation, and being returned to earth.” I wiggled my toes, feeling the circulation return to my feet.

“Tea?! Tea. Tee-hee…? Tree!” The man leapt from the deck like a banned toy bursting from its box. He scrambled up a complex rigging of leather straps and disappeared into the canopy of suspend­ed junk.

The floor and walls suspended beneath the cloud of grey balloons were as random as the crazy paving of Pathian walkways. Scraps of wood, bits of bone, animal skin and some kind of plaster created a mosaic pattern of materials and colours. While it looked strong enough, the entire structure creaked and moved in the air. I took a deep breath and tried not to think about dying.

“Drakeforth? Do you think we can climb down a rope or some­thing?”

“I’m sure we could.” Drakeforth stood and helped me up. I brushed the sand off my clothes and took stock of our situation.

After a few seconds, I concluded that I lived a life overstocked with strange circumstances and bizarre occurrences.

“But why would we?” Drakeforth added.

“Because it seems rude to impose on this…gentleman, without an invitation or any warning that we were going to drop in on him and his…flying balloon collection.”

“Goat intestines,” Drakeforth said, and went to examine the bindings on some of the more ramshackle parts of the cabin.

“Strong language, but okay.”

“The balloons are made of goat intestines. It’s an ancient nomadic tribal art form, though I can’t say I have ever seen anyone take it on a tangent that would lead to a flying machine. I think it warrants further investigation.”

“We already have an investigation that requires further invest­igation. A missing professor. Your wife—”

“Ex-wife,” Drakeforth corrected.

“Not relevant for the purposes of this demonstration,” I snapped.

“Why mention it, then?”

“I didn’t! Eade did. When I first met her. She made a point of mentioning it.”

“Why would someone build a machine like this?” Drakeforth asked.

Much like a life flashing past in the moment of death, an entire epic of adventure, romance, betrayal, and ultimately self-discovery, flashed through my mind. Instead, I sighed and said, “Why not?”

Drakeforth whirled and fixed me with a wide-eyed stare before marching across the creaking wooden deck and seizing me by the shoulders

“That,” he whispered hoarsely, “is the most profound thing I have ever heard you say.”

“You’re welcome?”

“Yes…” Drakeforth released me and shook himself to recover. “Yes, indeed, we are both welcome. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Not exactly reassuring.”

“Reassurance is for people who stay home and darn the holes in their socks.” Drakeforth set his hands on his hips and peered upwards through the tangled network of creaking leather cords and gently pulsing sacks of inflated goat-gut.

“Persimmon?” Our host dropped to the deck and thrust a tomato at me.

“Uhm, no thank you. I’m fine.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Drakeforth, leaning past me and taking the offering. He sniffed it and made an appreciative sound.

“I’m Drakeforth, this is Pudding,” Drakeforth said.

“Persimmon?” our host asked again, another of the tomato-berry-things in his hand.

“No, thank you. I think that’s a tomato.”

“It’s definitely a persimmon,” Drakeforth replied.

“It looks like a tomato.”

“You say tomato, I say persimmon.”

“Persimmon?” The man with the fruit was looking at each of us in turn, his offering gesture becoming more adamant.

“Very nice,” Drakeforth smiled and nodded in a way I’m sure he thought was reassuring. Our host whimpered and recoiled slightly.

“I have barely slept in the last couple of days, I’m not even sure what day it is. Drakeforth?”

“Hmm?” he said, with a mouthful of persimmon.

“What day is it?”

“Moogay,” he replied.

“What’s your name?” I asked, stepping between the two of them. “Charlotte,” I said carefully, pointing at my chest.

“Goat,” the man replied, pointing at himself.

“Yes, you are wearing what smells like dead goat. But what is your name? I’m Charlotte.” I repeated the gesture.

“Goat,” he waved again and nodded.

“Hello, Goat, where are you going in this flying machine?” Drakeforth asked.

Goat turned on his heel and scuttled to a battered trunk tied to one corner of the deck. The metal hinges screeched as he heaved the lid open and rummaged inside. We waited until he returned with a rolled-up scroll of well-scraped hide. With a grand gesture, he straightened and unfurled the skin. “Tr-” Goat stopped and turned the skin up the other way. “Tree!” he said.

A crudely painted white shape on the smooth side of the skin looked almost like a tree. Grey-white bark, gnarled branches and strange dark lines that were either leaves and twigs, or hair.

“That’s a lovely picture, Goat,” I said reassuringly.

Drakeforth stepped forward and snatched the scroll. Holding it up to the light, he studied it intently.

Goat’s nostrils flared and his eyes went wide. “Pedestrians!” he roared.

“Drakeforth… Give the nice man back his picture.”

“The Tree? You are out here looking for The Tree?”

“Tree!” Goat beamed.

“Pudding,” Drakeforth announced, “this man is completely mad.”

“Really? What gave it away? His unkempt appearance? His half-cured animal skin wardrobe? His strange manner?”

“He is seeking The Sacred Tree.”

“Looking for a tree in the desert? Isn’t that like looking for an iced tea shop out here?

“Only if people had lost their lives looking for a particular iced tea shop which no one had seen in thousands of years.”

“Persimmon?” Goat asked. I took the fruit without a word.

“I thought there weren’t any trees in a desert. It’s part of the whole desert thing. If there are trees in it, surely it’s more of a forest fire waiting to happen?”

“Goats,” Drakeforth replied, rolling up the scroll and handing it back to Goat, “are hard on trees. They tend to chew the bark off them. Once a tree has had its bark chewed off all the way around the trunk, it dies. Much like if someone was to chew the skin off your neck.”

“Eww,” I said.

“Trees have always been mythical in this part of the world. Only the nomadic nature of the goat-herding clans gave the grass a chance to grow. Even then it took a particularly grim breed of grass to survive.”

“Strain,” I corrected.

“Massive strain,” Drakeforth nodded. “The stress made the grass extremely tough, and probably quite fatalistic.”

“Goat is out here looking for a mythical tree?”

“Pretty much. It doesn’t exist, of course. It’s the idea that people become obsessed with. With enough desire, ideas take on a reality of their own.”

“Wishful thinking makes wishful reality?” I asked.

“All the wishing in the world won’t make a tree grow,” Drake­forth replied.

“I wish it did.”

“Tree!” Goat whooped and leapt into the rigging again. He leaned out into the desert sun and peered into the distance, his eyes narrowed against the glare.

“The puzzle of the persimmon has been solved,” Drakeforth announced.

“Oh, good. I was beside myself with worry about the persimm­on puzzle.” Tiredness and a general sense of being buffeted by events beyond my control had honed my sarcasm to a sharp tone.

“Up here,” Drakeforth said. I sighed and went to see what the fuss was about.