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The queen had other ideas. She rose and lifted her skirts high, showing that she was standing on the unwounded leg. Then she began whirling like a ballerina, her arms stretched out.
"What the hell?" Hank muttered. He had the feeling that something had suddenly gone wrong, that he was dealing, with forces that he did not understand. Nevertheless, he pulled on the cable, and the machine guns chattered on the wing above him.
Erakna disappeared.
Groaning, Hank let loose of the cable. He had no idea where she was. He doubted that she had made herself invisible. If she had, she still would have been hit by the bullets. She was probably in her suite in the castle now.
He turned southward. There was no use wasting more time and fuel. Twisting around, he beckoned that Bargma should come to the front cockpit. He could not see Blogo because he was sitting in Sharts's lap, but the giant was evidently raving and ranting. The owl, when she had worked her way to him and clutched his shoulder, yelled, "Tough luck!"
"When I get back to Glinda, my name'll be mud!" he shouted.
"You did your best. Which, I don't mind saying, was better than most men would've done!"
They passed over the Monkeys, flying in a long ragged file, and then Hank saw Balthii below. She had been hanging around somewhere near the farm, observing. Now she'd be taking the message to Glinda that Erakna was still alive.
A half hour later, a storm came from the southeast the like of which Hank had never flown in and hoped he never would again. It was so bad that he momentarily had the crazy thought that Erakna had summoned it up against him. Whatever its cause, it surrounded him with wild black clouds in which he was not sure that he was not sometimes flying upside down. His compass whirled insanely. Updrafts and down-drafts seized Je
He had perhaps fifteen minutes before the fuel tank was empty when Je
"That's the ruins of a city of the Long-Gones!" the owl said.
"Hell, we couldn't have been blown that far," Hank said. "Glinda told me that the ruins were in the extreme northwest corner of the land. In Nataweyland."
"I said a city. I've heard rumors and stories about other lost ruins."
Hank had been looking for ten minutes for a place to land in the mountains. He alone had a parachute, and so he could abandon ship if he did not find somewhere to set Je
Her destruction would make him feel far worse than the deaths of Sharts and Blogo.
"I'll be a hero for Glinda, but not for those two," he muttered.
Still, he was hanging on until he had three minutes of fuel left. But he may not have estimated the quantity correctly.
"There's a place to land," Bargma screeched in his ear.
Hank looked down and saw a level and relatively tree-free place which had suddenly appeared. He turned towards it, noted which way the wind was bending the treetops and bushes, and turned. He rapped on the panel for Je
"Good luck," the owl said, and she launched herself up and out.
When the engine had turned off, Hank climbed to the ground, relieved himself, and then spoke to Je
"Well, old girl, it looks as if your passengers will have to hoof it all the way back to Suthwarzha. Unless we can find some alcohol in this God-forsaken area. I didn't see a single village or house anywhere."
"You can't make any alcohol?" Je
"Maybe. We'll see. Don't worry. I won't desert you unless there's no other alternative. And I'll come back to get you. I swear I will."
The first thing to do was to push Je
"Why in hell did you land here? Don't you know that the Very Rare Beast is supposed to haunt the Long-Gone ruins?"
"Shut up, stupid!" Sharts said. "If he hadn't landed here, we'd be dead!"
"Maybe we'd be better off," Blogo muttered.
Hank got Je
"Who's going to guide you if you do get Je
"I don't know. But if Glinda knows where we are, she might be able to get us back somehow."
"A fat chance of that. She's a witch, but she's not a miracle-worker. I'm going now but not very far. I have to find something to eat."
That reminded Hank that he was hungry. He took the last of the cheese, nuts, and raisins from the knapsack and devoured them. He was still hungry. Maybe he'd starve to death. No, not if he could kill an animal. He did not care if the others would be horrified. He was not going to die just because meat-eating was tabu. Anyway, they would not have to know about it.
He thought about the pleas of the mouse caught by the owl in Abraam's barn. Could he kill a sentient creature for food? The empty belly knows no conscience, he told himself.
The question would be answered when he was starving.
He walked to the edge of the plateau from the meadow. A thousand or more feet below the sheer cliff was a river. An equally high cliff rose on the other side two miles or so away. Mountains surrounded this area, those to the west seeming to be the highest. He had been lucky to come through a pass. A mile to the right, a mile to the left, and he'd be dead now. He fingered his mother's gift, the housekey.
To the southeast, near the lip of the plateau, were some hills on which were the ruins of the ancient city. Most of it must be buried under soil and vegetation, but there were enough exposed buildings to indicate that this had once been a populous area. He did not know why the Long-Gones had had a city in this high, remote, and isolated area. Perhaps for the same reason that the city of Machu Picchu, discovered twelve years ago in the Andes, had been built.
Hjs desire to explore the ruins was shelved by hunger. He joined the other two as they set out to hunt. Sharts walked towards the ruins, but Blogo insisted that they go north instead. Sharts said, "Very well. If you're afraid, we won't go there."
Blogo thumped his chest, and his cock's comb got even redder.
"I'm afraid of nothing, I tell you! However, I am man enough to admit that a few things do make me nervous. Only a little, you understand! And that is only because my mother, all the mothers, warned the children about the Very Rare Beast. I, the man, am not afraid. But there's a little child in me that's still afraid. It's that that makes me nervous."
"The child in you must be very little indeed if he can get inside your little body," Sharts said. His grin made his talon-ravaged face look even more horrible.
Hank and Sharts went side by side into the upsloping woods. Blogo was behind them because his short legs could not keep up with theirs. Also, he probably did not want to cause any more remarks about his bugaboo. Sharts was cursing because flies were settling on his open wounds, and then he stopped in the midst of a block-long blasphemous word that would have done credit to a German philosopher.
Hank stopped also. Blogo bumped into him and said, "Why don't you warn a fellow, Giant?"
"Shh!" Sharts said.
They listened and heard, faintly, some piglike gruntings. But when they proceeded stealthily through the brush for thirty yards, they found that the porcine noises came from a big black bear. He was tearing at the carcass of a female moose.