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refused to catch.
There was nothing magical about the reason. His gaze dropped to the ancient
gas gauge. The needle was over past the E, as motionless as a corpse.
He took a deep breath. "Well, we almost got to ride. I came as close as I
could, but even a L'borian riding snake needs fuel."
Clothahump considered the mysterious gauge and the motionless needle contained
therein. "I see. What does this thing eat?"
"Gasoline, like I told you." Jon-Tom wore a sour expression. "What we're
smelling is the bottom of the tank."
"Where do you get this gasoline stuff?" Sorbl asked him.
"Oh, anywhere," he replied bitterly. "Hey, I'll just walk up to the nearest
Shell station and fill up a can."
"You are not thinking, my boy." Clothahump was shaking a stern finger at him.
"You are feeling sorry for yourself. Wizards are not permitted the luxury of
feeling sorry for themselves. An occasional pout, yes, but nothing more. It is
bad for appearances. Now think. This gasoline: what does it consist of?"
"It's a refined fuel." Jon-Tom wondered even as he explained why he was taking
the time. "It's reduced from oil. You know, oil. Petroleum. A thick black
liquid that oozes out of the ground. So what? Even if we could find some oil,
it wouldn't do us any good. I don't happen to have a refinery in my pocket."
"Speak for your own pockets, my boy." There was a twinkle in the wizard's eye.
Reaching into one of the lower drawers in his plastron, he produced a single
marble-sized black pill.
"Where is the ingestion point, the mouth?"
Frowning, Jon-Tom climbed out and moved to the rear of the motionless vehicle.
"Over here, on the side."
"Deposit this within." Clothahump handed him the black pill. Jon-Tom took it,
rolled it between his fingers. It had the consistency of rubber and the luster
of a black pearl.
Well, why not? It couldn't damage what they didn't have. Wondering why he was
bothering but having learned to trust the wizard's abilities, he dropped the
pill in the gas tank. There was a faint thunk as it struck bottom.
Clothahump raised his right hand and muttered to the sky.
Then he spat over the side. Jon-Tom thought, but couldn't be sure, that the
wizard's sputum was distinctly black.
"Now try it, my boy."
Shrugging, Jon-Tom slipped back behind the wheel and dubiously cranked the
ignition. The engine rumbled a couple of times, caught weakly. He pumped the
gas pedal, and the rumble became a steady roar. When he lifted his heel off
the pedal, the jeep was idling smoothly. The needle on the gas gauge had
swung over to "full."
"What did you do-no, how did you do it? What was in that pill?"
"Petroleum, as you call it, is a common ingredient in many important potions,"
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the wizard informed him.
"I merely utilized some concentrates and catalyzed them with an old spell used
for adapting hydrocarbons. Nothing complicated. I have no idea how long the
combination will suffice to power this machine, but it would appear that at
least for now we shall indeed have transportation, thanks to your spellsinging
and my magic."
"If I ever find a way back home," he told Clothahump, "I'd be much obliged for
a sample of that pill and a transcription of the accompanying spell.'-' He put
the jeep in gear again, sent it rolling toward the nearby trade road that led
into Lynchbany. "Ride we shall-unless there's something else as yet undetected
missing from this relic's chassis."
But as they bounced over the rocks and dirt toward the main wagon road, he
realized he couldn't be too severe with his creation.
After all, they'd gotten it for a song.
IV
The stripped-down jeep banged and rattled its way northward. Jon-Tom was
convinced it had no suspension at all: just wheels attached to an axle that
was directly bolted to the underbody. He wondered which would come apart
first: the underside of the jeep or his own.
Clothahump was of two minds concerning Jon-Tom's otherworldly procuration.
While considerably less comfortable and reassuring than a L'borian riding
snake, he had to admit that the jeep was faster. And it had no will of its
own. When they startled a fifteen-foot-tall trouk lizard sunning itself in the
road, the jeep did absolutely nothing to defend them. A L'borian snake would
have quickly driven the monster away.
Instead they had to settle for an inglorious end-run around the awakened
carnivore. The concomitant jolting nearly bounced the wizard out of his shell.
In addition to these unexpected drawbacks, the hydrocarbon spell that kept the
metal box's belly sated was continuously running down and had to be
periodically renewed. He reminded Jon-Tom that his resources were not
unlimited. Before long they would reach the point where the machine would
become useless because they could no longer fuel it.
The bone-jarring ride affected Sorbl least of all. When the bouncing and
jouncing began to bother him, he simply spread his great wings, released his
grip on the backseat, and took to the air, soaring effortlessly above the
treetops while keeping track of his unfortunate companions below.
They encountered no more dozing carnivores, however, and the road began to
smooth out as they drew nearer to Lynchbany. The autumn Bellwoods were
beautiful to look upon, with many leaves still clinging to the trees and the
ground between carpeted with umber and gold.
They were less pleasing to listen to, since the dying leaves that still hugged
the branches sang out of tune when the wind blew through them. As Clothahump
explained, the music of the bell leaves was a direct function of the seasons.
An experienced woodsman could forecast the weather by listening to the music
the trees played. The tree songs were sweet and melodious in springtime,
languorous in the summer, and harsh and atonal as they dropped from their
limbs in the fall. They struggled to blot out the discordant chorus from
Lynchbany all the way past Oglagia Towne, until they left the woods just south
of
Ospenspri.
"Not as fine a sight as grand Polastrindu," Clothahump told him, "but an
attractive little city in its own right, sequestered among rolling hills at
the northernmost fringes of civilization." He was leaning forward expectantly,
scanning the terrain ahead for their first sight of that lovely metropolis.
They were driving through herds of fat abismo lizards let out to graze on the
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last of summer's grass. Off in the distance the landscape lifted toward the
sky, the distant slopes the first manifestation of the high
Northern Plateau. It struck Jon-Tom as strange that no herdsfolk were visible
among the abismos, but perhaps they were trained to return to their barns at
nightfall by themselves.
"Ospenspri is particularly famed for its orchards," Clothahump was telling
him. "Up here they grow the best apples and toklas in the warmlands." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]