Even as he takes in this scene, from a nearby doorway a group of half a dozen Turbanites emerge, talking excitedly in a language that Woofard doesn't understand.
DAMMIT! With more of a scream of rage than a snarl, the big dog launches himself at the bastard that killed that poor man. The blood already foaming around the snarling jaws, filled with blood stained jagged white teeth, and the blood streaking the dog's side lend Woofard a feral look of fury. More a beast from bloody Hell, than any creature born of this Earth.
Nigel stares in disbelief as the dog attacks the remaining turbanites. He grabs a makeshift club and takes a swing at the leader's head .
Turbanite Elder didn't get to be a Turbanite Elder by being slow in combat. The wizened old man whips around and lunges at Woofard with a long, wickedly curved dagger (unlike his companions he doesn't yell "KILL" or anything else). At the last second he aborts his attack however as Nigel swings a piece of scrap lumber like a cricket bat in the general direction of his cranium. An academic career apparently does not prepare one for fighting crazed cultists in a burning building, however, for the attack comes up a bit short, though forcing the Turbanite Elder back down the hallway. While beneficial in keeping the demented old cultist at bay, it does cause Woofard's simultaneous leap to fall just short of latching onto one of his wildly flailing arms.
Nigel screams: "The child isn't here, now let's make a hasty retreat before we suffer the same fate as our multi-funtional friend here."
The group of Turbanites, momentarily surprised by the ferocity of the assault on their leader, at last come to their senses and charge towards the duo, screaming "KIIIIIIIIIIIILLL!" and brandishing their daggers, still wet with Hypo's blood!
Despite the heat of combat, Woofard sniffs around, striving to catch any scent of Marda being around at all, or an indication of where she might be, if not here. Woofard can't smell her, but its rather difficult what with the smoke and blood and all.
Dammit! Thinks Woofard, knowing Nigel is right, but hating it just the same. He keeps the scent of that evil fuck stored in a special place in his brain so he can hunt the son of a bitch down later. He wheels about towards Nigel, "You're right. Let's go." As he continues to turn and take off back down the stairs, behind the Brit.
Nigel turns and runs back down the way he and the canine came up. He hopes he will not feel the sting of a dagger in his back, he has so much more to accomplish for himself.
As Woofard and Nigel turn to flee, Woofard's quicker reaction time proves to be his undoing as he crashes into the back of Nigel's legs and goes down in a heap. As Nigel sprints back down the stairs the crazed Turbanites descend on the Akita, slashing and hacking, drawing blood from numerous wounds!
The Turbanites start stepping over Woofard's prone body at the top of the stairs, and rushing down in pursuit of the fleeing Nigel. The Englishman only goes down a few steps down before a flying tackle from a crazed, shrieking Turbanite sends him tumbling down the stairs in a heap. The others rush down behind the quarterback-elect.
Woofard lays limp at the head of the stairs in a slowly growing pool of his own blood. One thought goes through his mind, as he feels his life slipping away. It isn't fear, or even anger. Instead it is the utter sense of failure that fills his being. He thinks of all those people dead. All those people that he was unable to help: the poor people in this doomed charnel house, that poor junkman guy that was nothing but nice to him, the Limey had saved his life and was now as good as dead, his own wife, even that dipshit Sam, but most of all he failed that poor little girl. She counted on him, for friendship and protection. God only knows what happened to her, but whatever it was couldn't be good. And here he was, laying here dying like the dog he was.
The Turbanite Elder steps over Woofard's body to the head of the stairs, glaring down at Nigel entangled at the bottom. He shouts something in a harsh language, urging his minions on. Whatever it is, it sure sounds good -- the minions are electrified.
Nigel tries to tap into the rage welling within him to conjure up another blast, disregarding the damage it might cause him; failing that, he'll try to kick the bastard in the family jewels. Nigel wracks every fiber of his being for one more bolt of black energy -- and comes up empty. This reminds him of the painfully familiar sensations that accompany dry heaving. He gasps and kicks as hard as he can in the tackling Turbanite's treasure chest. The hit connects squarely, eliciting a moan, but the Turbanite nevertheless slashes at Nigel. The flashing blade buries itself halfway in Nigel's shoulder and comes out red.
Screaming their familiar motto, the rest of the Turbanites start running down the stairways to come to their fellow fiend's assistance.
Woofard notices something quite odd, as the Elder steps over his prone
form: he isn't dead yet. He hurts far too much to be dead.
He also realizes that the Limey's in trouble up to his neck, which will
soon be cut, if he doesn't get some help, or at least a distraction.
Woofard feels maybe he still has one last chance to redeem himself, a chance
to prevent at least one needless death. Hell, if he gets lucky, that
fucker will break his neck and that alone should save several lives.
For a seemingly endless moment, Woofard is airborne. As he glides though the air in a long arc, he has time to reflect on the numerous reasons why dogs should NOT fly, all having more or less to do with technical considerations such as landing approach and suitable landing gear; then he impacts the Elder's back with a resounding Thudd!, taking him completely by surprise.
Nigel, as he feels consciousness slipping, is treated to the sight of the plunging Elder, with Woofard on his back. Briefly, the bearded face of the Elder and Woofard's muzzle are superimposed by a vision of a sweating, flabby, balding face with a live dachshund strapped in a harness and peering over his shoulder. The vision dissipates as soon as it forms, and Nigel faints as the Elder and Woofard come down splat! on top of his tackling Turbanite terror.
Sweet zombie Jesus, I'm turban surfing down a staircase! thinks Woofard as they tumble down the stairs.
Woofard's intuition was right: landing IS a bitch. So to speak. His legs are not exactly built for this kind of sport, but he is a big sturdy smart dog, and manages to bounce with the impact without spraining anything. The fact that he has a solid jaw-lock on the Elder to help stabilize his position is of some help. The Turbanite who had been slashing at Nigel is not so lucky; his head hits the floor resoundingly, and he passes out.
The Elder is bleeding profusely where Woofard's fangs have sank in, but is far from done with. However, the Akita's powerful jaws are locked on the Elder's neck. Woofard evades the enraged remaining Turbanites' attacks by a hair.
Woofard crunches down on the Elder's neck for all he's worth. Shit, we are in trouble! he thinks (cuz his mouth's full). What am I gonna do? What would Lassie do? Aw fuck it, I could kill a bear with a grip like this, with these jaws. He continues to work the hold he's got, for all he's worth, because he knows he's grabbed the proverbial tiger by the tail.
The Elder squirms like an eel, trying to throw off his canine attacker, but Woofard's jaws continue to tighten. The powerful maxillaries of the Akita tear out another chunk of flesh from the man's neck, and the Elder finally collapses with a final twitch.
Woofard lets go of his victim to roll out of the way of the slower Turbanite zealots. Unfortunately, he is weak from exhaustion and loss of blood; he is not quite quick enough to avoid them entirely this time, and although the new cuts are barely nicks compared to some of his other wounds, they push him over the edge. He feels waves of blackness engulf him, even though the flames devouring the building are rapidly increasing in brilliance.
As he goes under, he notices with detachment that new voices, besides
the Turbanites' screeches, are filling the smoky corridor. In a haze,
he sees the ugliest face he has ever encountered framed in his rapidly
diminishing field of vision. Then nothing.
Nigel and Woofard are surprised to realize that they are conscious. The next thought they have is that they cannot remember being un-conscious, or waking up. It's like continuity just picked up a forgotten thread and ran with it.
For a startled instant they look for the grievous knife wounds they
both received. Both are startled again to notice they bear no such
wounds. They look down at their completely hale limbs, then back
at one another. Then, as they get their bearings, at their
surroundings.
Wow! If this is the afterlife, it's not bad. Woofard and Nigel are standing on a long beach of pale sand, lined on one side by a deep, deep blue sea, and on the other by a wealth of palm trees. This is a real beach, complete down to the sound of the surf, the smell of salt, a lively breeze, clumps of seaweed all around, and those annoying little insects that seem to live on sand alone.
"You scarabs sure are lucky I happened by!" the Voice continues.
Nigel and Woofard see no one on the beach except each other.
Woofard looks himself over and over, up one side and down the other. "Well, that's one thing to be thankful for, I guess." He says to himself. He looks over at Nigel, "I guess we're dead now. Sorry, bud, I guess I should'a listened to you when you said to run." He looks up and down the beach, "Well, ya gotta admit it's better than that stinkin' dump we left." "Hey there, God." Woofard calls out to the voice invisible, "Thanks for the bod. Ummm..... is my wife around here somewhere? Can I see her, please?"
Nigel looks around at the spectacle and turned to his canine companion, "Sorry to disappoint you my good fellow, but I just can't believe that one with as sordid a past as mine could make it into eternal paradise." Nigel looks to the sky. "Hello there, my friend and I are wondering who it is we should be thanking for saving our lives back there."
A little sigh hangs in the air, a soft counterpoint to the sound of the breaking waves. "I wouldn't say your lives are saved," says the Voice. "Think of it as duct-taping your souls to your bodies for a little while. If you don't get medical help soon, you'll still die. Duct-tape holds the world together!"
A pause, nicely filled by the undulations of palm trees in the breeze. Woofard and Nigel start noticing additional details, like what looks like a beach hut in the distance, framed by more palm trees, and what may be a small boat on the gently rolling waves, a ways off.
"And as for who I am, you can call me Dee. It's short for Delimah."
By now, it's become clear to the two Burger that the "Voice" is of a telepathic nature.
"Um....ok," replies Woofard trying to wrap the concept, of someone taping his soul in, around his mind. "Is there anything we can do to... I dunno, help our bodies... where ever they are, Dee? And if we do croak, is this where we wind up?" He stands up and gingerly stretches, feeling in the back of his mind that he is still sliced and diced and this kind of thing should really hurt.
Woofard looks at Nigel oddly for a moment, and then frowns. He looks at himself once more. He looks at Nigel and asks suspiciously, "What do I look like to you?"
Nigel looks at the canine "You look the same as you ever did, like a slightly inferior breed of Akita. Why, should you look like something else?"
"Umm, I dunno," replies Woofard sounding vaguely confused. "I think this place plays by some pretty strange rules, so I'm not sure what's supposed to happen here." He considers a moment. "What the Hell do you mean 'inferior'?"
"Well my friend," says Nigel, "I think we should head towards yon hut and see what awaits, do you agree?"
Woofard stretches, "Yeah, seems like a deal. if this voice has a body, it'll probably be there. But I gotta tell ya, I'm not so anxious to leave this paradise to go back to a sliced and diced dog body laying in some burning house some place."
"I would agree my friend, but I think this 'paradise' is just an illusion." Nigel turns and starts walking towards the hut. "Perhaps now you can tell me your story, and then I can tell you mine."
"If this is an illusion, I'll stick with it. It's already tons better than my life." He looks at Nigel out of the corner of his eye, as the walked along. "Before I open up too much, ya wanna tell me how close you're tied into the law in this...errr, that....ummm, back where we were? I saw ya snuggling up with that lady cop when we headed over towards monkey-town, didn't I?"
Nigel gave the canine a curious glance "I believe you must mean Mr. Dart. The lady and I were on less than friendly terms. We had a slight altercation when I first arrived here on the island. I do, however, have some ties to the local constabulary, although I assure you, they are not by my choosing, and I'm sure they don't involve yourself."
Woofard shrugs. "Sorry," he grins, "All you monkeyboys look alike to me."
Woofard and Nigel start treading the bright, warm sand, occasionally stepping into a cluster of drying seaweed. The colours of the entire landscape are so bright and vibrant, it's like stepping into a painting. The walk is long though easy, and somehow the hut doesn't seem to get any closer.
As they trudge on, they can make out the small boat on the horizon, a fishing boat, bright green and lined with red, with a taut white sail. It's leaning to a jaunty angle with the force of the wind, clipping at a good pace. Nigel and Woofard watch it for a few minutes, long enough to determine that it seems to be heading back towards the beach.
When their eyes wander back over to the hut, they make a quick double take: somehow, the hut seems closer than it was a moment ago. Or maybe their grasp of perspective has been altered by looking at the more distant boat. Either way, the hut now seems within reach, and they start walking again. They can now see that the hut is made of thin planking, thatched with dried palm fronds.
Near the hut, a form can be seen moving about; from the looks of it, a female form or one that is awfully far out of the closet, to judge by the bright yellow, orange and green skirt and the white ruffled blouse. The lady's back is turned, showing a bright knotted headscarf matching the skirt. She seems to be working in a small garden near the hut.
Nigel calls to the woman: "Hello there!! My friend and I were wondering if we could have a moment of your time..."
The gardener whirls around, and her bright flounced skirt flutters gracefully. Stasnding about a meter and a half tall, clad in a white embroidered ruffled shirt and a green, yellow, red, and orange plaid skirt with matching headscarf, is a beautiful grey cat.
Her smokey fur looks very soft; a streak of white runs down her nose, wisens to a splash around her muzzle and throat, and disappears down her décolletage, framed by a flounce of lace and a coral necklace. She wears no footgear, so her grey paws are visible, as is the tip of a grey tail poking from under the skirt. In one of her forepaws, she holds a pairs of garden clippers, and in the other a basket filled with a cluster of varied fruit: bananas, guavas, oranges, limes.
Her headscarf is tied with one point sticking up from the complex knot, and her soft-looking furry ears poking out to either side. A red flower is tucked behind the right ear. The eyes that peer back at Nigel and Woofard are large and green, and filled with intelligence. The cat opens her mouth in a remarkably good imitation of a human grin (unless it's a feline hiss-threat).
"By all means," she says. It is in fact the voice the Burger have heard before. She profers her basket. "May I offer you something to eat?" she asks. "I have some hibiscus iced tea in the house, if you'd like." She gives a sidelong glance to Woofard and her whiskers twitch minutely.
Woofard stands there staring stupidly for several long moments.
Okay, he thinks, of all the wierd stuff he's seen so far, this is easily
the wierdest. On the otherhand it is alos the most pleasant, and
the first odd thing that's happened that didn't involve some freak trying
to pull his liver out through his ear. He resolves to play it as
cool as he can, even though there's something in the look she gave him
that says she sees him as a dog still as well. He feels a little twinge
as he realizes that his perception of himself is as much of an illusion
as is this tropical beach.
"Lady, I'd love some food," he smiles, "Especially if ya got a slice
of Rocco's Pizza kicking around in that basket of yours."
The cat-lady's grin widens a bit. I'm afraid Rocco's doesn't deliver here," she says, shaking her head.
Nigel gives the feline his best disarming smile. "My dear lady, we would be ever so gracious if we could join you in a meal. My companion and I are somewhat confused as to our surroundings, and perhaps over lunch you would answer some of our question, if you don't mind?"
"I'll see what I can do," she answers. She turns towards the hut
and starts walking. Looking coquettishly over her shoulder, she checks
whether they're following.
"Now that we're settled, I suppose you'll want some explanations. I'm afraid I won't be able to give you as much as you'll want." She shrugs prettily. "I have some limited ability to see and even contact people's spirits, their souls. I'm holding on to you two right now while your bodies are in danger of dying. If they do die, there's nothing I can do to keep you here; you will just... depart." Her eyes wander to the sea, where the green boat is still approaching. A silhouette can now be made out, dressed in a chequered white and blue shirt with white pants.
"There are worse things, you know," the cat-lady continues. "But I don't think you'll want to volunteer. And in the mean time, I'm helping you stay on this side." The cat-grin reappears. "You're in my private construct, a way to visualize this dimension or whatever you wish to call it. We all need to apply patterns onto the information we receive, that's how the brain works. If you already have apattern to apply, that's what you use; but here, well, you're practically in my head so I supply most of the concepts. They may interact strangely with your own concepts."
"Ah, I see," says Woofard, as he wonders if he really does. He pokes at the unfamiliar food with the unfamiliar utensil, and scoops some of the fish stuff up. He eyes it dubiously, and then tries a little bit. To his surprise, it is quite good. He starts snarfing it down, while even a little bit in the back of his mind wondered if the food is real at all. "So, what you're saying is that all we see here are representations of a reality. Like if we were to hop on that boat out there, when he comes in, we're gonna be sailing off to the eternal daisy nap. Meanwhile, all this here, is like a coma.... Good fish goo, by the way. So how do we get back to our bodies? Or do we even want to do that before someone plugs up all the holes Crazy Abdul carved into our hides?"
Nigel is trying to reconcile the picture of a creature without opposable thumbs grasping a fork, but never mind that... Oddly enough, the picture doesn't quite 'focus' in Nigel's mind. Woofard is a dog. Woofard is eating with silverware. Woofard is sitting right in front of Nigel. Yet it doesn't add up. When he looks directly at his companion, Nigel sees a dog sitting politely at the table. The contents of Woofard's plate seem to be decreasing steadily. But Nigel just can't 'see' it, it seems as if every bite is taken while he's looking away.
He shrugs and enquires: "So what exactly, if anything, can be done to save our 'mortal' selves back in reality? And I must compliment you on your mental construct here, it is quite lovely..."
This time, it looks as if Dee would actually blush if she could. "Thank you very much," she purrs. "I'm glad you like it."
She pauses for a moment, nibbling on a piece of fruit pie (do cats eat fruit pie?), as if lost in reflexion. "I don't think there is anything you can do to directly help your situation right now," she says slowly. "But maybe indirectly... That is, in a more long-term perpective. You might be able to do some work here on the... the psychic plane if you will. If you're interested. It doesn't really have anything to do with the mess you'd gotten in, but it's another mess you might stumble on anyway."
She pauses again, looking at Nigel and Woofard in turn. "How do you feel about religion?" she asks, purring again.
Nigel pauses in his consumption of the exquisite meal... "Religion? Nothing more than a huge propaganda machine used by various entities to control the mindless masses. People need a way to explaining the unexplainable, and religion provides the answers they seek. This is not to say that I don't believe in the supernatural, quite the contrary, nor do I refute the possiblility of a 'supreme being' (although I'm yet to be totaly convinced) I simply don't believe that one or more of these religious fanatics acutally have it right. .......Why do you ask?"
Dee smiles a bit. "I think you might be surprised on this island. Religions are very powerful indeed. What you have experienced to date... Well, to use a somewhat flawed analogy, it's like comparing medical science before and after the germ theory of disease. For centuries, physicians were little more than charlatans, purging and bleeding their patients, administering what we would now consider dangerous poisons such as mercury and antimony in liberal quantities. With germ theory, a few decades led to gigantic improvements and the eradication of numerous diseases that had been unchecked until then. On Al Amarja, many groups have a close connection with divine forces, and I'm not referring to psychic powers which are another type of force altogether."
She pauses to plop a bite of pie in her mouth using the spork. Her table manners are very dainty.
Woofard tries to deal with the knowledge that their lives or deaths are completely out of their hands, even while they lounge about in this tropical paradise. He feels... mostly confusion. He is brought out of his thoughts by her question, "Religion? Ummm, I punched out a Scientologst once, does that count for something?" He looks around, "Hey, he had it coming. He was making some moves on my girl."
"Oh, the Scientologists..." Dee waves a vague paw as if to brush the topic away, and grins. "Their sense of timing is awful. They made a play a few years ago to be declared a state religion. Madame President isn't about to let any one group get that kind of power, and her daughter Cheryl took the matter in hand. Cheryl now has the religion market well organized. Besides, many groups have a much stronger divine power base."
She shakes her head. "Anyway, I was asking because there is a matter that seems to have resonances on this plane of existence, and from what I can tell it seems to be religious in nature. I have many things to tend to, and I would appreciate some help into examining the matter. It would give you something to occupy your time beside nail-biting."
"Uh, sure. I'm up for it," replies Woofard, "What's the scoop?"
Nigel nods in agreement, "I would love to be of assistance, what do you need?"
Dee, finished with her dessert, props her elbows onto the table and rest her feline chin on her forepaws in a very human gesture.
"Something seems to be poking into this place, this dimension, that really shouldn't be here. It doesn't appear to be threatening in any way, but it's building up and I don't quite understand where it comes from. From the looks of it, there are probably religious ties. You'd think I should be able to check it out for myself, and really I can, but the poking and proding takes away a lot of concentration I need right now. If you could give it a look-see and report back, I would at least have an idea where to start."
Absent-mindedly, she extends one paw and starts playing with a grape. "I should describe a bit," she continues. "It started some weeks ago, although I could tell you exactly when. It's one of those things that you don't really notice until one morning you suddenly go 'Wow! Has this been here long?', like gray hair or wrinkles. At first it looked more or less like a bump in the ground, a little hillock that wasn't there before. Then it started taking on a shape, and it continued growing. A few days ago, the religious motif finally started coalescing, or maybe I just figured it out. Now it's like someone has planted the entrance to a cave right in the middle of my mentally-enhanced landscape. I'm sure we could do lots of wonderful psychoanalysis with the combination of cave and religion, but let's not. I'm reasonably convinced this is an intrusion from outside, not something I dredged from the bottom of my subconscious; for one thing this place here has an objective existence outside my brain, I only give it window dressing. Why my brain interprets the intrusion as a collection of religious motifs, that's open to debate." She waves her paw to emphasize that this matter is out of her control for now.
"Now, you may or may not know that Cheryl d'Aubainne, Madame President's daughter, runs the Temple of Divine Experience in Sunken. It's very eclectic, if you'll forgive the not-quite-pun, and all religions are welcome except Satanists. Because the intrusion -- I call it the Mass Pit, by the way -- shows a collection of diverse religious symbols, I immediately thought of Cheryl d'Aubainne. But she has never, to my knowledge, tried muscling in on psychics. She is more the populist, New Age consensus-builder type, if you see what I mean. On the other hand, if it is her who's trying to push me around, I need to get out of the way. I'm not going to be head-butting with any d'Aubainne, and neither should you; you should back out immediately if there are signs of d'Aubainne involvement. If you don't want to take the job, I'll understand."
Nigel ponders the offer for a moment. "Well, it does seem as though there is nothing else for us to do here while our fate is decided, and it may help me gather some information I'm trying to get, so my vote is yes..."
Woofard shrugs, "Sure, we got nothin' better ta do. Hey, it might even earn us some karmic-credit points and help us get back to.... our rightful bodies. Umm, where is this pit then?"
Dee inclines her feline head. "Thank you. I appreciate the help." She gestures towards the small boat sailing towards them, which is now very close. "It's a good ways off, one reason I have not paid as much attention as I should have. Saul will take you."
She waves towards the occupant of the boat, who is tacking. He spares a hand to wave back quickly, then returns to his business.
"Let's go meet him," Dee suggets. She gets up from the bench
with smooth grace. She picks up the basket of fruit and adds some bread
rolls and a sealed clay jar. She adjusts her skirts and lace flounces,
then starts walking towards the shore, in the direction one can expect
the emerald boat to make landfall.
Pretty soon the boat is close enough that his occupant can furl the sail and weigh anchor. The boat's draft is so shallow that it can come practically all the way to the beach, like a row boat. The sailor makes everything fast, then grabs a large basket full of fish and jumps in the water. The waves come to his knees but his pant legs are rolled up so his clothes don't get entirely soaked.
As he approaches with the results of his fishing expedition, Woofard and Nigel get a good view of another non-standard character. Naturally, an ordinary Joe would be too much to expect in this place. The newcomer is an anthropomorphic bird, just like Dee is an anthropomorphic cat. A tall, burly, grey, tan and white bird with big yellow eyes, a blue and white chequered shirt, white pants, clawed feet, and wing-hands. He puts his load down as soon as he is on dry sand and runs towards Dee. The cat-lady also runs ahead to meet him halfway, and they embrace joyfully. All expectations the visitors might have had of fur and feathers flying have to be set aside for now. Then again, Dee and Woofard didn't fight either.
The bird-man (at a guess, the great horned owl-man) lifts Dee in the air and spins her around, as she giggles. "Saul!" she protests. "You're all wet!" They hug again before they turn towards the visitors. Dee wraps her arm around Saul's, uh, wing and affectionately leans against him.
"Let me introduce you to Nigel and Woofard," she says, gesturing toward each in turn. "Gentlemen, this is my husband Saul."
"How do you do," says Saul, extending a wing.
Woofard gives Nigel a can-you-believe-this look out of the side of his eye. And then pastes on a friendly grin and shakes (Shake, boy, shake) hands... paws.... wings with Saul. "Hey there, howyadoin'? The name's.... uh... Woofard."
"Saul, Saul Ushant," answers the sailing bird, shaking with a pleasant, firm grip. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Woofard." He turns toward Nigel.
Nigel also grasps the offered appendage. "Pleased to meet you my good fellow, Nigel Timmons is the name. I'm to understand that you shall assist us in assisting the young lady here?"
Saul shakes again very politely, then raises an eyebrow, looking at Dee. Well, he raises an ear tuft, which looks like it means much the same in anthropomorphic great horned owls. "Um, I guess so," he answers cautiously.
Dee's chuckle ends with something like a purr. She looks coquettishly at Saul over her shoulder. "I asked them to look at the Mass Pit for me," she explains. "They were kind enough to agree. I was hoping you'd take them there." The tip of her tail, just visible below the edge of her skirts, twitches a bit.
Saul shrugs, half-spreading his wings. "I live to serve," he hoots ironically. But he gives Dee's cheek a friendly peck. "Can I have lunch first?" he asks.
Dee laughs again and hands him the basket. "I'll trade you for the fish," she suggests. "That way you'll have a warm dinner waiting for you when you come back."
Saul check the contents of the basket, and nods. "All right." He digs into the basket for a sandwich which he devours in moments. Fruit and cheese go down as quickly. Meanwhile, Dee, takes the other basket, weighed with fish. After his quick lunch, the owl turns to the two visitors. "Mr. Woofard, Mr. Timmons, may I offer you a cruise?" he says pleasantly.
Woofard watches the birdman snork down the sandwich in fascination. It's a slight moment before he realizes Saul is speaking to them. "Yeah, sounds great, as long as ya don't sail us into the deadlands."
The bird-man helps them onto the small green sailboat, whose name is written in gilt letters on the side: "Promise." They have to get their legs wet, but the sun is warm and everything dries quickly. The boat is large enough for them to sit comfortably, but small enough to be handled by one person. Saul pushes the boat off the shore, then hops on, waving to Dee. The cat-lady waves back from the beach.
"Watch your head, Mr. Timmons,"advises the sailor as he unfurls the sail and lets it fill. In moments, the small craft picks up speed and throws a fine bowline. Woofard can't help himself. Something makes him hang his head over the edge and let the wind blow his face, tongue lolling.
Instead of heading back towards the horizon, Saul takes the boat on a course parallel to the coast, offering a fine view of white beaches, deep green jungles, and blue-green waves. After a fairly short but rather exhilarating cruise, they start rounding a cape that juts far into the ocean (which ocean is it anyway?). Beyond it, they finally get a view of what has been worrying Dee.
On the far side of the cape, a baroque assemblage of shapes seems to have grown from the ground. In stark contrast with the cheerful, peaceful views that Nigel and Woofard have encountered so far, this construct is dark and jarring. It looks vaguely like a pillar made of junkyard materials, a junkyard that would deal heavily in minarets, crucifixes, chacmools, obelisks, toreii, and menhirs among other things. Despite the ambient sunshine, it seem backlit and gloomy. The perspective is a little hard to adjust to, but it appears to be quite tall, perhaps like a twelve or fifteen story building. At the bottom is a gaping darkness, giving no hint of what it hides.
Behind them, the Burger hear Saul hoot. "Holy..." his exclamation ends in an embarassed cough. "This thing is getting taller too!" he finishes. "It's not just a hole in the ground anymore."
"Wow", says Woofard looking the odd structure over, "There's something ya don't see everyday. It looks sort of like the Watts Towers if they were built by the Pope and Larry Flynt."
Below the thing, there is no smooth beach to land on but a steep rise, like a landslide has carved a scoop out of the ground above the sea. The waves are noticeably louder here as they crash on the steep shore.
"I can't get the boat in," Saul comments, shaking his owlish head. "I can land you on the other side we just past and you can hoof it across the cape, or I can drop you here a little distance from the shore and you can try to climb. Or we can go further down the coast to the next decent beach."
"Well, I'm not so keen on climbing," says Woofard, "Saul, do you know how far down the coast the next beach would be?"
Saul cocks his head sideways. "Ooh, a couple of miles or so," he answers. "Unless things have changed there too." He turns to glance back at the outlandish thing with unblinking eyes and a thoughtful expression.
As requested by his passengers, Saul heads the boat towards the nearest cove where they can make a safe landfall. On their way, they pass under the shadow cast by the baroque monument onto the waters below. On the far side of the bluffs, as promised by their guide, Woofard and Nigel see a small bay that promises better conditions. The distance rapidly melts as Saul's boat gleefully tilts under the press of sails. Soon the bird-man starts taking the sails in, and with more caution he brings the craft in for a gentle landing.
For some reason, Woofard just cannot resistputting his face out into
the breeze, as they sail. "Ya know, I lived in San Francisco all
my life. There's water all over the place there: the bay, and the
ocean. But I never really have ridden in a boat like this.
Hell, I haven't even taken the boat out to Alcatraz."
"I can be back to pick you up later," Saul tells his passengers.
"Say an hour before sundown?" He holds out a very old flare gun.
"Here, you can signal with this if you find another landing spot or if
you need assistance. And if you're in trouble, Dee should be able
to pick it up and let me know."
Woofard nods, and hops from the boat. He lets Nigel take the flare pistol. He turns back to the birdman, "So, where are you going to be waiting to see our signal? Just so we know how soon to expect to see you again, if we have to signal."
At that moment, a voice shouts from the bluffs above: ""Woof woof bark woof, grrr! Barkbarkbark, rowlff bark?"
Woofard's head whips around so quickly he worries about whiplash, as he searches with eyes and ears for the source of this commotion so obviously directed at him. "Where the Hell did that come from?"
To Be Continued...