The day was going to end up hot. They all knew it. The dust swirled around, getting in their hair and up their noses, and all of them were miserable. They had even stopped making tasteless jokes about each other.
"Are we there yet?" Perky asked.
Billy Bob shook his head. "No, little one." With more than a little irritation in his voice, he added,"If we were, you'd know."
Perky looked a little pouty. "Just asking."
Billy Bob tossed a snack at her. "Eat up."
Shok Rijja was lagging behind a bit. His legs felt tired, despite having gotten plenty of exercise by walking in the hills for a long time, and his robe was beginning to become impregnated with dust and sweat. He sneakily sniffed himself, then wrinkled his nose. "Hey, does your friend Oakpucker have a shower, or a well, or something?"
"Abner Oakbucket," replied Billy Bob, "has minimal accommodations. It's more of a secret laboratory than a hotel. He has a well, least he did last time I saw him. Hell, for all I know he has a movie theatre and a spa."
"Really?" said Perky and Shok at almost the same time.
Billy Bob just grunted and walked a little faster.
Overhead, the sky was a faded blue, the air too hot for any stronger colour. Little puffs of white cloud scudded across the sky in the distance, but it was as if they were avoiding our group. Even more distant mountains almost looked as if they were being drenched in rain, but that was just a rumour and a tease. Everywhere the mostly flat plain of the valley stretched out as far as the eye could see, with objects too hazy to make out, as if they were there one moment, and gone the next.
Perky scuffed at some small rocks, causing more dust to billow up, making her cough. She spat out the dust, or tried to. The spit just clung to the dust.
Shok also tried scuffing at some rocks, but he missed one and then hit the next one, but it was actually a small tip of a deeply buried larger rock, and he hurt his toe. "Ow!" He fell to the ground. The other two paused for a moment, looked back, and then continued trudging on. Shok massaged his toe for a few moments, then got up and limped onward, grimacing.
Onward they marched, spread out in a loose single file. Sweat had glistened on their skin, dried, become merged with dust, then they had sweated again, repeating the process over and over until they felt like they were one with the land. Shok had fantasies that he'd drop to the ground, which would swallow him up and he would become half man, half mole, ruling the underground world as the King he'd always dreamed of being. Perky had fantasies that one of the mirages would turn out to be a real pool of water, and it would have fun people and pool toys and yummy fruity drinks. Billy Bob just kept thinking that Abner's place should be around here soon, and he hoped he hadn't made a wrong turn, although in a flat, roadless plain, there weren't really any turns.
"Hey, man, how long have we been walking?" asked Shok in a grumbly voice.
"Bout an hour," replied Billy Bob.
"What??" yelled Shok and Perky at more or less the same time.
"Well, that's just a guess. I don't have a watch, and these parts have a funny relationship with time. Time passes differently, dependin' on where you are. The gap back yonder was more than a gap, it was a barrier between zones. The more time passes, the more these differences change. I wouldn't be surprised if one day, some areas will be thousands of years in the future, or the past, dependin' on your point of view."
"That sounds dumb," said Shok. "Doesn't it?" He looked unsure. He hadn't really paid much attention to anything except his parents leaving, and his hunger.
"Freaky", breathed Perky. "I think I saw an anime like that once."
They all stopped so they could drink some of their dwindling supply of water.
Billy Bob wiped his mouth. "Abner's place should be around here. Thing is, his place ain't exactly obvious. Because of all the evil that's roamin' around, he kinda...hid it."
Shok frowned. "Wait a minute. We've been walking through this forsaken place for...a long time...trying to find a place that if it is here, is hidden?" He scratched his nose.
Perky felt so frustrated she felt ready to flop around on the ground like a two year old having a tantrum. "I'm bored!"
"Now, hold on, you two! It is around here, I know that. I just gotta find a signpost. He keeps switchin' 'em. It's one of three things: a stick with a rag on it sticking outta the ground, or a rock with a white spot on it, or a circle in the dirt. I gotta find one a them."
Perky and Shok looked at each other with blank stares.
"Wait a second," said Shok. "You're telling us that his three signs are things that are either so common here they could be anything, or they're things that could easily blow away or be moved by animals?"
Perky didn't really like to criticize, but even she thought Billy Bob was being dumb.
Billy Bob looked at them. "Trust me, you'd know them if you saw them. They kinda...stand out."
All of a sudden, just as Perky and Shok were going to complain some more, a small shadow moved towards them. They looked up, and a very small section of black cloud was directly above. As they looked up in wonder, it began to rain. Hard, torrential rain. It spattered them and battered them. In seconds, it washed all their dust and sweat off. They felt cool. Just as suddenly, it stopped. A silence rang out. A low rumble moved the ground beneath them. All around them, the soil burst open in little mounds. Shiny black tentacles with white nodes on them popped out of the mounds. Several of them whipped around the legs of our trio. Everyone started yelling. Billy Bob used his confiscated staff to beat at the tentacles. He got a few of them, causing the arms to explode, green ichor spurting out, hissing when it hit the now-muddy ground. Perky was on the ground, flailing at one that had wrapped around her legs. A few of her sparkly-painted fingernails slashed at the invaders, causing them to twitch and withdraw. Shok was stamping on some, squishing them, but more come. All around was noise, mud, and green blood. They seemed to be making headway, but then more tentacles would pop up. All seemed lost.
Then out of the sky, with a whoop and a holler, came the ten-foot crow with the bowler hat and the ugly clothes that had been following them since the gap. He screeched and used his claws on the tentacles, beating his wings, and slashing with his beak. More mud, and blood, filled the air, but finally the tentacles began to retreat. After more long minutes of fighting, the last one slithered under the ground in defeat. They all lay there in the mud, exhausted, bloody or bruised, some of the blood red, some of it green. The sun beat down on them mercilessly.
Finally, Billy Bob sat up. He looked at the giant crow. "Well, it sure took ya long enough, Abner!"
Perky and Shok were astonished, their mouths hanging open.
"THIS is Abner Oakbucket?", they said at exactly the same time.
The crow nodded. "Pleased to meet you. Forgive my lateness. I've been tailing you, haha, since the gap, and I got caught up in a minor side experiment with a flock of birds a ways back. I saw the black cloud forming from a mile away and I knew I had to rush."
"What were those things?" asked Perky, her eyes wide.
"Ah well,"Abner coughed. "Seems one of my little, ah, experiments got a little out of hand. Those were the many arms of a desert squid. First of its kind!" He looked proud. "Who knew that a creature of the ocean would thrive so well in an underground desert environment. Very peculiar. Hm, I don't think being in the heat helped its, ah, mental wellbeing. See, the deep ocean is a cold, cold place. Oh well." He got up.
"Nobody's perfect! Haha, I know all too well," he continued. "But that's the nature of experiments. You can guess, but you can't really know what will happen. Also, my equipment isn't exactly up to date. I've had to, ahem, cobble together my lab from the meanest of sources." He looked at the three bedraggled adventurers. "I apologize if you were hurt."
"But why would you make a desert squid?" asked Shok. "I mean, what's the point?"
Abner looked into the distance, then looked at young Shok Rijja. He paused, then answered. "What's the point of my bowler hat?", which answered nothing.
Abner picked up a stick from the ground and waved it in the air. The air shimmered and slowly, a vast hollow appeared. Unlike the surrounding plain, it was green with trees. A trickling brook wound its way through the woods, and in clearing about a hundred paces away, stood Abner's place, his home and his laboratory.
"Won't you all come inside?"
...to be continued.
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