Wandering Spark - Part 59
"You lied to me. You can fly."
They were sitting on a stone ledge. The plaiters, as predicted, fled barely waiting for the sunset. Thanks to the faithful birds - they marked the place, leaving two smelly piles on the cornice. Varan sat down next to them without any disgust, but the magician didn’t calm down until he found a way to throw the plaiters’ present into the abyss.
Now they were sitting in the dark, which grew thicker every minute. The sun-warmed stone exuded warmth.
"Don’t say nonsense," the mage snapped. "I can hold out in the air for a few seconds... well, a minute... as the last resort. Honestly, I have never met magicians who would fly themselves, without the help of birds or artifacts..."
Plantain leaned and spat down into the abyss. The spittle shimmered with a shaky, unpleasant light. Toward night the wind subsided, and the twinkling spark fell almost perpendicular until it was extinguished somewhere in the clouds.
"My mouth is dry," complained Clover.
"I would have spat," Varan said. "But I cannot do it ..."
"The chief of birdhouse doesn’t do anything himself - he will go to the lord. He either accepts it or tells him to wait until morning. And if will accept, they will lose half an hour on an attack of an inflated anger... It is convenient to hide a panic behind anger...
"Why should he be afraid?"
Plantain scratched the tip of his nose:
"We have a complicated relationship with the lord of Round Fang. But for my life, he answers with his head."
"Before who?"
Plantain winced at him in surprise. Varan bit his tongue. The magician again bent over the crack and spit it out.
In the depths of the rifts, something rustled and crackled. Someone's glowing eyes appeared in the darkness. They blinked and disappeared. Silence again. A rustle of crumbling sand...
"Tomorrow I'll be back with the guards," muttered Clover. "You say there is a crack in the lid?"
"Yes, huge. And through the hole in the chest, the money are shining."
"And who could it be," the mage mumbled very quietly, to himself. "Tell me the name of something sour."
"Sour reps."
"I don’t know, I haven’t eaten it..."
"Vinegar."
"Oh! The mage spat again. This time the spit shone brighter than usual."
"You do not have any water left," Varan said.
The magician shook an empty flask.
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