Read Online Of Machines & Magics by Adele Abbot - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adele Abbot
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food?” Roli asked, outraged at what he had heard.
Calistrope shook his head. “Their mouth parts can cope only with the honeydew in those bladders,” he explained. “Even broth, their gut cannot digest it,” Calistrope bit his lip. “This is something that had not occurred to me, I must admit.”
While Charylla and Faramiss watched the prowlers, the humans collected great piles of brush and dead wood. They heaped it up in mounds across the open ground, effectively sealing off the way they had come. Ponderos set it alight at several places and as it began to burn, slowly at first and then more furiously, they backed away from the heat.
How are good-byes made in such circumstances? The two ants continued to stare into the gloom beyond the flames and ignored them. Eventually, Calistrope just said a simple emotionless goodbye and when there was still no response, they turned about and glumly resumed their journey.
Calistrope and both his companions had come to regard the two insects as friends simply because they had shared so many leagues of their trek with each other and had fought first the dragonflies and more recently the pack insects together. The comradeship they had felt was a false relationship, Calistrope saw that now. The ants were so far removed from humans that there was not the merest chance of social understanding.
Calistrope remembered the remark he had made to Formicca: “our goals are yours.” The high caste ant had agreed. The air was not cold but Calistrope shivered and drew his cloak protectively about himself. There really was no comprehension between the two species. Even so, he felt depressed that the two ants were not the brave comrades he had briefly supposed them to be.
He trudged after his companions.
A well-defined game trail ran along the riverside, meandering around bushes and copses or outcrops and rejoining further on. Often, there were signs of past flooding and the trail branched from lower to higher levels.
They moved at a good pace on the downhill grade until the river—now a sizeable watercourse—crowded them closer and closer to the southern side of the valley. There were still trails to follow but they became narrower, worn into the mosses and clay by more sure-footed creatures than humans. While the far side of the river was flat and home to small swarms of grazing insects, the paths to which they were confined were often narrow ledges or passages between fallen boulders.
They came to the end of one such trail which had taken them fifty or sixty ells above the water’s edge, the trail turned a corner and opened out onto a series of wide terraces. “There’s a light ahead,” Ponderos observed as he rounded the corner. “A glow.”
The gorge opened out before them into a wide valley with a sedimentary flood plain on either side of the river which curled through the valley in a succession of curves and discarded ox-bow lakes. To one side was a small settlement—a dozen or so houses and other buildings clustered around an open space with a larger meeting hall on one side. A few outlying structures bordered a rude track way running the length of the open part of the valley. A faint suggestion of smoke came to them on the air. They could discern no activity however, no people, no animals.
After some discussion, they decide to skirt the village by remaining close to the steeper slopes until they were well beyond the farthest house. The companions crossed the end of a small gorge where a busy stream tumbled down to join the river below them. Beyond, they continued again and a league onward, perhaps a little more, came to a point where the valley once more closed up and the river funneled between almost vertical cliffs. They found a way well above water level which, from its well-trodden appearance they judged would take them all the way though the narrows.
They marched single file along a ledge little wider than a pair of feet, their new familiarity with such walkways
Calistrope shook his head. “Their mouth parts can cope only with the honeydew in those bladders,” he explained. “Even broth, their gut cannot digest it,” Calistrope bit his lip. “This is something that had not occurred to me, I must admit.”
While Charylla and Faramiss watched the prowlers, the humans collected great piles of brush and dead wood. They heaped it up in mounds across the open ground, effectively sealing off the way they had come. Ponderos set it alight at several places and as it began to burn, slowly at first and then more furiously, they backed away from the heat.
How are good-byes made in such circumstances? The two ants continued to stare into the gloom beyond the flames and ignored them. Eventually, Calistrope just said a simple emotionless goodbye and when there was still no response, they turned about and glumly resumed their journey.
Calistrope and both his companions had come to regard the two insects as friends simply because they had shared so many leagues of their trek with each other and had fought first the dragonflies and more recently the pack insects together. The comradeship they had felt was a false relationship, Calistrope saw that now. The ants were so far removed from humans that there was not the merest chance of social understanding.
Calistrope remembered the remark he had made to Formicca: “our goals are yours.” The high caste ant had agreed. The air was not cold but Calistrope shivered and drew his cloak protectively about himself. There really was no comprehension between the two species. Even so, he felt depressed that the two ants were not the brave comrades he had briefly supposed them to be.
He trudged after his companions.
A well-defined game trail ran along the riverside, meandering around bushes and copses or outcrops and rejoining further on. Often, there were signs of past flooding and the trail branched from lower to higher levels.
They moved at a good pace on the downhill grade until the river—now a sizeable watercourse—crowded them closer and closer to the southern side of the valley. There were still trails to follow but they became narrower, worn into the mosses and clay by more sure-footed creatures than humans. While the far side of the river was flat and home to small swarms of grazing insects, the paths to which they were confined were often narrow ledges or passages between fallen boulders.
They came to the end of one such trail which had taken them fifty or sixty ells above the water’s edge, the trail turned a corner and opened out onto a series of wide terraces. “There’s a light ahead,” Ponderos observed as he rounded the corner. “A glow.”
The gorge opened out before them into a wide valley with a sedimentary flood plain on either side of the river which curled through the valley in a succession of curves and discarded ox-bow lakes. To one side was a small settlement—a dozen or so houses and other buildings clustered around an open space with a larger meeting hall on one side. A few outlying structures bordered a rude track way running the length of the open part of the valley. A faint suggestion of smoke came to them on the air. They could discern no activity however, no people, no animals.
After some discussion, they decide to skirt the village by remaining close to the steeper slopes until they were well beyond the farthest house. The companions crossed the end of a small gorge where a busy stream tumbled down to join the river below them. Beyond, they continued again and a league onward, perhaps a little more, came to a point where the valley once more closed up and the river funneled between almost vertical cliffs. They found a way well above water level which, from its well-trodden appearance they judged would take them all the way though the narrows.
They marched single file along a ledge little wider than a pair of feet, their new familiarity with such walkways
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