“Go on, have at it,” Oberbyght shouted. “I care nothing for the wretched fellow, and you clearly have no concern for this baggage here”
Maddigern stopped, his stout frame suddenly rigid, as he stared at the hovering balloon. The seer stood at the basket's edge, his hands grasping the princess’ ankles as she swung precariously over nothing but a great deal of air. She shrieked and flailed about. The most frightening moment in her life before this was when a bee stung her toe when she was twelve.
Maddigern didn't move. He glared at the seer with rage uncontained, no longer mindful that Finn was there.
Oberbyght smiled. “What does it take to get your attention, Badgie? I've got an idea, see what you think of this?”
With that, the sorcerer let go of one of the princess’ an kles, holding her weight with a single hand. DeFloraine-Marie cried out, a most frightening sound that was heard by many citizens far below.
Maddigern stared, his blade still poised above his head. Finn could see a tremor, a shudder, as the fury of indecision swept the Badgie's stout frame. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he stood his ground, as rigid as the cold, fossilized rulers in the Holy Place of Emperors, Tyrants and Kings.
Then, he took a step back, lowered his blade, and turned away from the princess, gazing at nothing at all.
Finn didn't hesitate an instant. He grabbed the nearly severed rope and swung from the tower wall. The cord snapped beneath his grip and the balloon jerked free, moving swiftly in the strong evening breeze.
Bucerius hauled him in and dumped him roughly on the wicker basket's floor.
“Finn, I wish you wouldn't do things like that,” Letitia said, as a single tear trickled down her cheek. “I will be severely upset if you ever leap off over nothing again.”
“I think I can promise I will avoid such antics, my dear.”
“Where have I heard that before,” said Julia Jessica Slagg…
FIFTY-SIX
Finn marveled at how swiftly the great palace of Heldessia's King shrank to a speck he could hide behind his thumb. He had forgotten the perversity of balloons, which will hang without moving, and refuse to go anywhere at all, then rush through the clouds with a speed impossible for any conveyance on the ground.
Before they had drifted too far, he had seen Maddigern and his Badgies crowded on the top of the tower, watching in silence as their prey moved farther and farther away.
Finn was still watching when the great bell pealed again, its solemn tones resounding through the ‘rip in the cosmic trousers,’ as the seer liked to say, from the world of illusions to the deepening afternoon where the Bullie's balloon rushed away toward the west.
Either that, Finn said to himself, or this is the illusion, and the real world's somewhere past the bell.
And, indeed, if that were so, who could ever tell?
“If you've nothing to do,” Bucerius said, “you can get your head back where it belongs and be helpin’ me with them lines. You didn't learn much on the way in here, but you might be better'n some.”
Finn felt a small, but honest moment of pride at the Bullie's words, for he knew this was as close as the fellow would come to granting him some station as the crewman of a balloon.
“This is really a difficult craft to master,” he told Letitia Louise. “It takes enormous skill to learn the order of cords, the drift, the height, the strength of the winds, the correct amount of ballast to loose to gain the proper altitude.
“When I can find time from my work, I would like to learn more about the fascinating world of vessels of the air.”
“That's wonderful, dear,” Letitia said, with a sweet and haughty smile she'd learned from DeFloraine-Marie. “When you do, just give me time to pack my bags, for I'll not be living with a man who's hanging from a bag of gas, worrying me sick, instead of minding his business on the ground.”
Nothing more was said on the subject after that.
Princess Defloraine-marie kept very much to herselfafter the craft was under way. Letitia tried to speak to her once, for she wished to thank her for doing her part in breaking through to Oberbyght's lair.
Letitia had been quite surprised to find that within that slim, near-perfect frame there was strength enough to crack stone and plaster and help bring down the ancient wall.
Still, the princess clearly didn't wish for company at all. She stayed by herself and looked wistfully back at the quickly receding hills of Heldessia Land.
“You're free to leap anytime you wish,” the seer told her. “I'd not interfere with your efforts now.”
Finn watched her from the far side of the basket, which was not that far away in the Bullie's craft. Bucerius had given her a blanket against the cooling afternoon, but the wrap did little to hide her lithe and graceful form.
Finn had had no chance to tell Letitia what he'd seen in the chamber of the Deeply Entombed, or, indeed, the other startling sight he'd witnessed there, though Letitia could guess some of the story herself.
Maddigern, and the daughter of the King. There was no doubt of the intimacy between them. No doubt of the look in the Badgie's eyes when he stepped back and let them all go to save the princess’ life.
This enchanting, willful beauty, and the fierce, bloody-minded Badgie-a human and a Newlie who had somehow found one another despite the differences that lay between them.
Much like another odd pairing I could name. One Finn of Fyxedia, and a Mycer named Letitia Louise…
Though he could not see how one of these couplings could possibly relate to the other, he could not deny that the other was there. And there were more such unions in the world this day-some, he imagined, stranger than he knew
Come look at this, both of you,” Bucerius said, cupping his enormous hands above his brow. “I been expectin’ it, hoping it wouldn't be.”
At first Finn could see nothing against the glare of the eastern sky. Then, they were there, three small brightly colored spheres, very close together, somewhat higher than Bucerius’ balloon.
“They've caught a good current up there,” the Bullie said, clenching his fists around a heavy rope line. “Just fool luck is what it is. Isn't a balloonist anywheres who'd know it be there.”
“Anything we can do?”
The Bullie frowned at Finn. “Can't get up there, if that's what you mean. Not without tossin’ all of you out, which isn't too bad an idea. I can't dump ballast, neither. Isn't enough to do much good.”
“So we wait,” the seer said.
“They got a wind beats the Westerlies a mile. Might be we'll get us one too.”
Bucerius made no effort to pretend he thought such a miracle would happen anytime soon…
“We'll make it,” Finn assured Letitia. “We've come this far. Nothing can stop us now.”
He was well aware how absurd such words must sound, but Letitia was kind enough to say nothing at all. Even Julia Jessica Slagg kept her silence. In respect, Finn thought, of the tragedy that was about to befall.
“Bucerius says we've passed just south of the battleground, which means we're halfway, on the other side of the Swamp of Bleak Demise. Our side, and that's good. We've a way to go, of course”
Finn paused, for the sun had disappeared behind low purple clouds, and the breeze had picked up considerably, bringing the three balloons closer still. Now, the Heldessian coat of arms was quite clear on the flanks of the racing spheres.
“If the velocity of the wind remains the same at our level and theirs,” Julia said, “they will approach us less than a hundred and seven feet above us on a south-southwesterly course. In about nine minutes, I believe.”
“Shut up,” Finn told her. “I'm sure our captain doesn't need any navigational help from you.”
“No, I don't,” Bucerius said, looking somewhat appalled. “I don't, but that ugly's near right.”