“Don't fear, little fellow,” came the deep, yet scarcely heard whisper from below. “I means you no harm. Be coming down here if you will.”
“It's-Bucerius, yes?” Finn said, searching for the name. “I have that right, do I not?”
“Close enough, human.”
“I'll-I shall be right with you, then.”
Finn quickly found his trousers and slipped into a shirt. His boots were not in sight, and he decided to do without. Letitia stirred in her sleep, and Finn prayed she wouldn't wake up.
“Shall I come with you?” said Julia Jessica Slagg from the dark.
“And do what? Wrestle him to the ground?”
Julia didn't answer. Finn hurried quickly down the stairs, slipped the lock on his thick oaken door-a door he had always felt secure, until this very night.
“You being at the balloonin’ place,” the Bullie announced. “I sees you there when the sun be rising again.”
“Did you come here to tell me that?”
“No.”
“No. Then what?”
“We be goin’ to Heldessia Land. If fortune be with us, we be comin’ back as well. I be tellin’ you this. I am not liking human persons at all.”
“All right, I guess I can live with that.”
Finn stared up at the Bullie. The sky, the stars, the universe itself had disappeared. There was nothing else to see but the monstrous, somewhat odorous form, that blocked out the night.
“If you don't like human-persons, why do you work for the Prince? Why don't you do something else?”
Bucerius shrugged, a major event in itself.
“Business is business. Money be talkin’, and a Prince be no worse than anyone else.”
“Point well taken,” Finn said. “Sunrise then, all right? I feel we're off for a really fun time.”
“That be a humor, is it not?”
“Sort of, yes. Close enough.”
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Don't be doin’ it again. My folk isn't likin’ joke, whimsy, slappers of any sort. You be joking, keep it to yourself.”
“Fine, I will,” Finn said. “You have a nice night.”
“Be watching good, human. Might be trouble you havin’ before it get light.”
“What? What kind of trouble, what are you talking about?”
“Something bad. Something like this maybe coming here again.”
“Something like what?-”
Finn froze in his tracks. The enormous creature reached down behind him, lifted up a big potato sack, then another after that. When both of these burdens hung snugly on his shoulder, he turned back to Finn.
In the dark of night, Finn was uncertain if what he was seeing was real. The two potato sacks seemed to squirm, seemed to wiggle, refuse to sit still. Something in there shuddered, something in there moved. More than that, vague, incoherent sounds came from the sacks as well.
“When sun comin’ up, you bein’ there,” the Bullie said. “We be leaving, catching the easterly wind.”
“Yes, fine. Easterly wind… Look, I don't feel you answered my question about what trouble might appear. And something, I guess you know, is stirring in your sacks.”
Bucerius rumbled, deep within his chest. His features twisted in disgust. “Human person don't be listenin’ at all. Fellow you be fighting with, fellow be ugly, even for one of your kind. He comin’ here with a friend. Goin’ to be doing you in, is what he got in mind.”
Finn felt the hairs climb the back of his neck.
“That lout at the fair…He's in your, uh-”
“Might be he gots another friend, might be he don't. You be where I'm sayin’, all right? Don't be messing up my business, human person. You hear?”
Finn didn't answer. He stood on his doorstep, stood very still. He watched, as the Bullie hefted his sacks more easily on his shoulder and stomped down Garpenny Street toward the river way. He wanted to ask what his shipmate, his ponderous companion, his new best friend-who didn't care for whimsy-intended to do down there. On the other hand, he didn't really want to know at all…
TEN
From afar, Finn had smelled the noxious fumes when the wind was from the west, heard the clamor, heard the roar of the great eternal fires, seen the ruddy glow against the night. Never had he felt the slightest need, the least desire, to go near the horrid place.
Never, and that included now.
A horde of men and Newlies swarmed about, shouted, bellowed, cursed one another, caught in seeming chaos, total disarray. Some clutched ropes that dangled from the sky, lines that held the great, sluggish war balloons in tow.
Some manned the endless complexity of valves, flues, nozzles and such affixed to the pulsing, swollen tubes that snaked across the grounds. The tubes themselves emerged like multilimbed demons from the fiery sheds where coal, through some alchemic means, conjured itself into gas that fed the ever-hungry balloons.
Then, having had their fill, these giant, bloated creatures could scarcely be contained upon the ground. It took much effort, strength, and obscenities as well to keep them from breaking their tethers and rising into the tainted air
“You be gettin’ a move on, human person. We runnin’ out of wind, runnin’ outta time!”
A shout, coupled with a ferocious grip that nearly took his shoulder off, shook Finn out of his thoughts.
“If we miss the wind, then what?” Finn said. “We don't have to go?”
“Not be goin to miss it, you hearing this, you unner-stan’?”
“Yes, I think I've got it,” Finn said, fully grasping the Bullie's ire. “Perfectly clear to me.”
“Good. You keepin’ up now, I don’ be askin’ you again.”
Without another word, Bucerius stomped off across the noisy, crowded flats, through the flurry, through the tangle and the maze of ropes and lines and nets, through the mud and the mire, the curses and the shouts, and the vast, bloated herd of captive balloons that overshadowed them all.
The Royal Balloon Grounds were a mix of human and Newlie alike. A crowd of Snouters leaped aside as Bucerius plowed through their ranks, scattering the fellows in his path. One went sprawling on his back, giving the others a hearty laugh.
They were stout, short creatures with ugly noses- noses that gave them their common name-beings with tiny pit eyes and scarcely any chins at all. Most wore the overalls of farmers, for this crew was bringing crates of vegetables and fruits to the balloons. To Finn's eyes, their merchandise was somewhat wilted and overripe, produce that shoppers in the market wouldn't buy.
Bullies, too, were all about, barely clad giants that loomed above the crowd, hefting loads of every sort upon their broad and muscled backs. Finn didn't fail to notice they all gave Bucerius a fierce and bitter glance, for his dress and manner said he didn't have to make a living with his back, the task so common to his kind.
Still, the Bullie was scarcely a dapper fellow in his plain, plaid trousers and worn high boots, but he did sport a butter-colored vest sewn with shells and shiny bits of glass. A garment, Finn decided, several ordinary creatures could use for a tent, in case a storm should appear.
For a moment, Finn was unaware that they'd left the massive war balloons behind and come to a section of the grounds reserved for merchant craft. Here, balloons of every shape and size gathered to await the morning winds that would waft them on their way.