Fishing With Larry, Contemplating The Infinitesimal Void

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. At least that's what the historians like to say. Actually, there had always been dragons in the Valley. Everybody knows that. It was literally called "The Valley Of The Dragons" for decades until we got semantically lazy and abbreviated every damn thing we possibly could, settling on just “The Valley”.

So.....

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But now there are, and we will have to deal with them along the way.

I enter the room and, as usual, it feels comfortable. It’s a funny thing. That “comfortable” energy is almost auratic. Like a personality. As if the room were alive. I see an orange-ish red hue from the doorway and a slight wave in the tapestry just next to it. The image of a lazy eyed, horned being imbedded in the tapestry smiles and winks. The doorway grows dark as several shapes mill about blocking the light. I stir the logs in the stove and poor some tea as a corrugated tube drops down and puffs a spicy fragrance while speaking.

“Are you ready? Did you bring the fuse?”

“Yes . . . and yes.” I look to my right. The bag is there. Everything I had packed is there. I smile as one of the shapes comes through the doorway. Lomlom’s broad brownish face with a heavy blue tipped nose and ears that jut out even further as he squints to adjust his eyes to the dim light.

“Morning. The crew is set and packed. How ya feeling? Had your tea?” he says as he waves his giant, lanky hand and walks over to the stove.

“On it now, Lomlom. Thanks for getting shit ready. I feel like I’m stuck on hippy time today” I sip my tea and smile, thinking on the strangeness of the relationships in this realm. To not know you already know everything can be screwy at times or, sometimes, it feels just right.

“Mind if I snag a cup?”

“Have at it man.”

The tube moves about, like a boa in a tree, and speaks again.

“Have you checked the straps? The gears on the crank seemed wonky before. Are they tight? Have you been calibrated recently?”

“Yes Matilda. Calibrated on my last jaunt. Looked pretty good going in. Only a little skewed.” I walk over to the bunch of fungal pods humming in the corner and press down the squishy center of the red and purple cap of the largest one. The others light dimly and vibrate. I sip my tea and grab my bag.

The tapestry flutters as I catch a glimmer of light emanating from the center of the room.

“Hello my lady. Good to see you.” I say, smiling. It's so hard not to smile when she appears.

She floats closer, her waving fibers glisten white as her golden image dims enough for me to see her soothing face. Soft, large eyes blinking in a smile. There is as much age as there is youth in her face. The fleshy coral like growths on her head flow toward the back as the tips glow bluish white intermittently.

I feel her love and encouragement.

“Thankyou” I say as I bow my head.

She bows hers in reply and dissipates into a minty smelling mist. Looking through the mist I notice that the mechanism within the fuse is whirring and gyrating. That’s a good thing. I grab it by the base and thread it into the socket on the box. A pulse of energy shoots through the room. Lomlom looks up.

“Want me to grab that? I can load it now since it's fired up.”

“Sure. Thanks man.”

Lomlom sets his cup down, grabs the box and scurries out of the room.

I grab my bag and tools, finish my tea and bid Matilda goodbye.

The eyes of the guy in the tapestry follow me as I leave the room. The sun is low now and the sky is a thin blue. Pink and orange puffy clouds float about the air as the dirigible pods steam in anticipation. A tiny, insectile creature scurries by. His black beady eyes dart about as he frantically gathers small, round stones into a basket mounted on his back. I lose sight of him as he wanders under the Behemoth and disappears into the blackness beneath it.

I must say, the Behemoth is a difficult piece of machinery to describe. Imagine if a bus were to be one hundred and fifty feet long by forty feet wide and twenty feet tall. And imagine still that same bus were to also not have wheels but, instead, have thousands of small “feet” that look similar to the trunk and root system of a tree. These feet grope forward, like a millipede, carrying the cab forward with them. The cab, being more of a mass of metal, tubing, fungal flesh, glass and gears than that of a bus, burps steam and smoke from myriad vents and stacks sprawling about its exterior.

The Behemoth groans, shuffling its many feet waiting for our cavalcade of dirigible pods and winged folk to gather around it. I still have no clue how the hell that machine functions or for what purpose. All I know is that we need it.

“Check your gear?”

I look over to Lomlom, tightening the twine on the scope to his rifle.

“Cull your pellets as often as possible. These damn guns jam up something awful if you feed them a rotten or dead seed.”

“Sound advice buddy.” I say then set my gear next to the pod and grab my ammo bag so I can get to culling too. “I’d hate to get caught with rot-jam.”

Lomlom looks up and smiles, his blue tipped nose drooping slightly as he pulls down his goggles. He grabs the dangling dendrite near the console and yells “Balls! That would suck big giant ass balls!” then jams the node into the ignition socket. The engine fires up loud and clunky. Steam bellows from the exhausts. He screams some incoherent babble as his pod lifts into the air, the spidery landing legs fold up into the belly and he launches himself off into the blue, cerulean sky.

The City in the Clouds is a tough destination to reach. It is, for one, mobile, and two, precariously located in the upper regions of one of the tallest giants in the herd. Also, within the herd are housed many other denizens far worse than the City's goblin and ilk. Bad business there whichever way you toss it. Bad bad business. So of course, this is our destination.

My glider's beady, fly-like head bobs as it works its whisker/tentacles into the feed sac. There are several maintenance personnel scrubbing the barnacle crystals caked up around the hull of the fuselage and a bit up the edge of the windows. Pilots like this growth for its ease in solar collection and cutting out the drag between the spiney back flesh and the saddle base of the fuselage. This particular sub-glider could hold 5 passengers and one pilot. The ovoid shape of the cab facilitates a triangular seating arrangement in the cab leaving the same volume behind the seating for storage and air tanks. Strange machines full of gears, pistons and muscular plant fiber are puffing away, spewing smoke into the face of a small bird-ish elf who is shoving yellow berries into a sphinctered orifice on the starboard side of the vessel. I believe this machine is the air compressor. The tubing coming from these machines feed up into the belly not too far from the berry eating orifice.

Glompo passes me a small pipe.

“Here. Smoke this. Your purple is dimming.”

I smile and take a good long drag. It smells of mullein and lavender . . . and maybe some black sage. Sitting back into my seat I buckle as a warm smooth calm washes over me.

We'll be taking off soon. Well, the blue bio lights just flicked on so . . . eggs might be nice.

With tea. Or maybe an S . . . I love the wavey rhythm of sub-gliders. Sound. Vibrations. Patterns. Not sure. Under water or in the air . . . I just well I uhhhh I . . .

“Bossman! Hey. Wake up man!” Glompo said with tangy breath wafting dead into my nose.

I open my eyes.

“We're close baby. Real close.” He said smiling.

I sit up.

“How long was I out?”

Glompo smiles and points.

“Long enough man. Look over there.”

I look to my right. We’ve reached The Valley and, sure as shit, dragons are flitting about everywhere like flies on a dung pile. Typical of giants, the herd has wandered precariously close to their stomping ground and, knowing how territorial dragons can be, they seemed pretty damn agitated.

As we come through the clearing, I feel chills waft all over my body. There is a humming so large, so deep that even my bones are vibrating. It's peaceful. Safe even. I'm in the Valley. The mountainous stony walls are buried beneath vegetation. Between myself and the walls are a series of megalithic stones. Twenty in all. Ten on either side. They are mossy, old and seeming to have distinct individual personalities. The glyphs carved into them are also worn and mossy. At their base is a path obscured by a soft bed of clover. The air is filled with small, luminescent bugs glowing orange and blue. The end of the path opens to a small doorway of sorts formed by an arch made of two trees, vine covered and flowering. Glyphs are also carved here, cascading down the trunks of the trees. As we fly over it, I see a wooden sign with the words “Welcome to Chugwater” engraved into its face. Beneath it, on the thick wooden gate is the face of a horned being reminiscent of the face on the tapestry from earlier. He is smiling. His drooping eyes seem to beckon you to enter.

From here we begin our ascent into the clouds at the top of the herd, to the City.