Rurk's team easily scored their two goals, and Volo called a time out.
"What is it now?" Rurk asked, impatient to see the slaughter end, so that the slaughter could begin.
"We're going to put our sandals on," Volo announced, making a great show of huffing and puffing.
"Tired, huh?" Rurk chuckled.
"Can't wait till it's over," Volo puffed.
"My feelings exactly," Rurk replied. "Why don't we dispense with the facade of two more games? Game equals match, so that we can get on with it."
Volo huffed and puffed, fingering his beard in tired contemplation.
"Okay," the master traveler replied, "but I think we deserve a handicap."
"Like what?" Rurk replied.
"Could we start from a third of the way down?" Volo offered. "It might give us a chance to get our hands on the ball, so to speak."
"Not that it would do you any good," Rurk countered, then added, "Why not? Let's get on with it."
Rurk stood up and announced to the crowd as Herve translated.
"New rules," he announced. "Challengers shall be allowed a head start down the field. Game equals match. This one is for the girl, the feather barge, and everything!"
"Yes!" Volo, Curtis, and Passepout whispered a cheer in unison. Rurk had made the agreement public and would not be able to back out without losing face.
The three players, their feet shod in their customized sandals, shuffled into position down the field.
"Begin!" Rurk yelled, and the ball was put in play.
Curtis took off like a shot first, bouncing down the field in leaps and bounds that were magnified by the extra thick rubber soles of his sandals. Passepout meanwhile took his place under the midcourt ring, and began to hop up and down. With each hop, his bounce increased, aided and accentuated by the cushions of air that Volo had made sure were added to the sandals' newly padded rubber soles. With all of the agility of the tumbler training that he had learned at his father's knee, the chubby thespian began to turn somersaults in midair, mystifying the opposing team, who had never seen a fat man fly without the aid of magic feathers.
In the meantime, Volo had joined Curtis at the place where the ball was still bouncing. The master traveler and the young beachcomber intertwined their arms, and caught the ball between their two bodies, and then proceeded to hop toward their bouncing buddy.
Rurk could not believe his eyes.
"They can't do that!" he shouted.
"Why not?" Shurleen replied.
"She's right," Herve responded. "There's nothing against it in the rules."
In the time it took for that conversational exchange to take place, Volo and Curtis had maneuvered the ball to Passepout's position. On the count of three, the two ball-bearers released control of the rubber spheroid, allowing it to bounce once, at which point it was recovered between the elbows of the tumbling Passepout who, with all the force of his flabby girth, propelled himself down and up in a bounce that put him on chest level with the goal ring, at which point he released the ball with a push from his stomach, sending it sailing through the ring, and on to victory.
"Goal, game, match! The challengers win!" Herve announced in his native tongue.
"No!" Rurk screamed, overcome with rage. "Seize them!"
No one could hear Rurk's order however, and Herve failed to translate it, further accentuating the warlord's apoplectic fury.
"The raft!" Volo yelled, heading toward Herve and their featherbed deliverer.
Herve steered the raft into a hover near Shurleen.
"Hey, lady, need a lift?" he called.
"Charmed," she replied, hoisting the disguised packs on board with her.
When she was in place, she pointed to Curtis, Volo, and Passepout, who were hemmed in by the crowd who wished to congratulate them.
Herve nodded, as if to say no problem, and steered the raft directly over them.
"Gentlemen, hop!" Volo ordered, and the three travelers bounced up to their feather-lined aerial getaway raft, climbed on board, and were eastward bound in no time.
Herve, seated at the front of the plume raft, called back to the others, who were having a victory reunion. "I figured Rurk was about at the end of his reign. I took this baby out for a spin earlier today, and saw a contingent of Tethyrian mercenaries heading this way. If you don't mind, I'll get off when we hit the coast."
"What will you do?" Volo asked. Curtis was busy with Shurleen, and Passepout was still catching his breath, unaccustomed as he was to this much exertion in a single day.
"I don't know," the halfling replied. "Maybe go north, go back home, see what opportunities are waiting for me there."
"Do you want to join us?" Volo offered. "We're heading back to Faerun."
"No, thanks," Herve replied. "The offer is appreciated, but I'd rather stay here. This is my home, and besides, from what I understand, it's not healthy to drink the water in Faerun."
Herve and Volo laughed, and in no time at all they had reached the coast, and Herve departed, bidding them a fond farewell.
Chapter 20
Before he left, Herve explained to the four travelers the whys and wherefores of operating the raft of magic plumes. Steering was accomplished by gently lifting the raft's corner in the direction in which you wanted to proceed. Altitude was controlled by the mutual movements of the riders on board while clutching the feathered surface at their sides. Leaning forward would instigate a gradual dive, leaning back a gradual ascent.
"One more thing," Herve had warned. "Try not to fly too close to the surf. The feathers become weighed down with moisture, and it becomes hard to keep aloft. Also try to avoid puncturing the raft in any way. It upsets the balance of the floating spell."
"Why?" Volo had asked, hoping for a possible new notation for a revised edition of Volo's Guide to All Things Magical.
"Don't ask me," the halfling had replied. "I don't build them, I just fly 'em."
As before, Volo and Passepout used a combination of existing charts in the master traveler's pack, and the enchanted map that accompanied the necromancer's jewels to chart their course, as the chubby thespian cast an enchanted gem overboard at each of its appointed sites, thus marking their location on the map with the completion of each divestiture.
"Bombs away," Passepout announced, no longer surreptitious when dropping the enchanted formerly green, now red, gems. Only Volo would have heard him anyway, as Curtis and Shurleen were much too involved in silently getting reacquainted. Passepout looked back at the two young lovers, a feeling of slight heartache still present.
Once they had left the coast, Shurleen had apologized to all for her behavior, asking for forgiveness from those who had saved her from a fate she deemed worse than death. She had then apologized to Passepout personally, asking for his forgiveness for the way the treated him. He, of course, accepted her apology, and had smiled when she stated that she hoped that they could still be friends, the smile masking the internal tears that only a disappointed friend who really wanted much more would really understand. He continued to smile until she rejoined Curtis at, the hark of their feather airship, when he allowed himself a single tear, which he quickly wiped away before any one could see it.
Oh, well, he said to himself with a faint sniffle, maybe I wasn't cut out to marry an heiress, anyway. There's always still the possibility of a reward from her father.
"Passepout," Volo called, "when was the last time you dropped a gem?"
"Minutes ago," the thespian replied. "That's what I did when I said, 'Bombs away.' "
"Great," the master traveler replied with great enthusiasm. "By my calculations, we should be approaching the island of Evermeet very soon now."