Wandering Spark - Part 2

Varan and his companion approached the headman's house.

"Karp, hey Karp! The mail arrived, and there is one more thing..."

"Put the mail under the door and the thing will wait for later," a hoarse voice answered. "Don’t open the door, you heard me. It's dry here, leave the business for later."

But before Varan had time to say anything in response, the visitor pushed him off the road and pushed the tarred door.

"I said do not open it!" barked the headman. "You'll show you, asshole!"

Varan found nothing better than to step inside after the stranger.

The headman’s house was really dry. From the ceiling hung swollen salt pouches – the ones that draw steam from the air. The floor was covered with a crispy layer of pink and blue salt. Karp himself in his home woven clothes was sitting in front of the hearth with a delicious bowl on his knees. Not a fish, as far as Varan could see. And not reps.

"I beg your pardon," said the envoy, straightening up and looking like a real master. "I arrived at the Round Fang with the Imperial directions for your lord... I am ready to present my credential letters."

Karp did not choke with his vegetable stew (and in the bowl, there was the stew!). Looking at the stranger and glancing briefly at Varan (who guessed to close the door tightly behind the stranger), the elder carefully put the bowl on a low stone table. He bowed his head, becoming surprisingly like a hunchback fish:

"Certainly."

"Varan made a few steps forward. Salt under his boots crackled. Around the wet shoes of the newcomer, the precious salt carpet began to melt.

The stranger bent over his trunk (a carved chest of solid wood! Varan could see how the headman looked at the thing with an interested look). He threw back the lid. The chest was not empty, as Varan was suspected. It was packed with thin scrolls of paper. Dry crispy scrolls, so that the light content of the chest was, perhaps, more expensive than the truck itself...

And how he was not robbed on the way, Varan thought.

"My documents…"

Stranger unfolded something on the palm of his hand.

Varan jumped back. Rainbow glow above the opened paper sheet; with a slight crackle, appeared tiny sparks. The headman peeped his eyes out, unconsciously applied two fingers to his lips, fending off Shuu.

"Examine carefully," said the newcomer, and Varan heard a mockery in his voice. He poked the provincial rats with their noses into the real Imperial seal...

The headman, to his credit, took himself in hand almost immediately.

Without hurrying, he got up and made official an bow. Not higher, but not lower than it should be. He stretched out his neck, studying the document more carefully and importantly nodded:

"Welcome to the Round Fang, Gorni Lereala... roun. What kind of services would you like to receive, uh, from the local authorities?"

Varan raised himself on tiptoe. He saw on the paper a field playing with all colors, on it - the convex, as if alive, the face of a stranger Gorni - without a hood, with dry hair and not swollen, healthy nose. He did not have time to read the letters.

"Only one service," the stranger with a ridiculously long name folded the paper, thereby extinguishing the radiance. "Take me upstairs without delay, desirable right now."

"Ah," the headman coughed, clearing his hoarse throat. "Er, Gorni... I do not know if there is any transport today... You!" He turned sharply to Varan. "Does your father send water today?"

"He sent it yesterday," parried Varan, not wishing, to be too rude. "And today his screw is not turned."

"Tell him to turn the screw," the headman said affectionately. "You see, the Gorni is in a hurry... So, run to the father, let him turn the screw and send Gorni. Seal of the Emperor - is what for him, a toy?"

Varan nearly choked because of indignation. So playfully to shove the problem on someone else and even mention the Emperor...

"But how... it worked yesterday... and the spring, it has to be winded... And what if it does not reach… it will fall down, what then?"

"Is the Emperor's order for you and your father is not an order at all?" Asked the headman affectionately.

Varan looked helplessly at the stranger.

He was standing in a pool of swarming salt, the hood was thrown back, his hair was indeed almost shoulder-length, stuck to his head. In the lowered hand was a credential paper with the rainbow inside.

"This is our people," the headman concluded with a sigh. "Lazy people and cunning, on their own fields they work a lot. But try to find a thousand reasons not to work on a community field of the state. Zagor one-eyed, father of this parasite have a lift. I'll write you a note to give you something to eat, drink, warm and dry clothes. I see, that you are a rare guest here..." The headman giggled gently. He reached into the niche of the table, pulled out a large dull shell, took out a stylus from behind his ear, spat for some reason, and began scratching. The sound was hardly audible, but it was utterly vile.

Varan swallowed bitter saliva. It's useless to argue, this fat catfish always win, the best net goes to him, a vegetable ragout in a bowl. He always calls his villages - parasites, what a jerk! He is one true parasite...

Why are you looking around? "It seems that the headman has felt his gaze on the bowl with stew. " Here's a note to your father. All that is indicated – fulfill it. It will then be reimbursed... Now, go! You will pay with your skin for Gorni if anything happens! You, and your father. Go!

And he made a bow to this Lerealaroun. This time it was a low bow, emphatically respectful. Varan opened thru door, letting the steam clubs enter inside... Varan barely managed to dodge a kick under the butt form the headman.

It's Karp's happiness that Varan dodged. Then, of course, it would take a long time for the headman to wash the homemade woven shirt... from the blood from a broken nose...

"And you are wicked," the Gorni said and sneezed again. "Make sparks with your eyes... Take the chest."

Varan - nowhere to go - took up the leather handle of the wooden container of treasures. It turned out that the chest is not as easy as he thought before; in fact, it was heavier than both bags of mail, lying right here, under the porch.

"Where we are going?" Asked the snotty Gorni.

Varan silently wished him to get stuck in Shuu's ass. But he just nodded silently, indicating the direction.

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Part 1

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To be continued...

Thank you for reading!