Zindaloo, Conclusion
finally
Editor's Note: Zindaloo starts here and continues here.
The Baron and the Mantis both woke to a fog. The Mantis was unsurprised; a fog of his own making had impeded his senses lately. The Baron, on the other hand, though well-accustomed to waking up outdoors and in peculiar surroundings, was disconcerted. Every joint in his body ached and it seemed that new joints had been added where his ribs curved and in the center of his forehead, and they ached as well. Both of them immediately blamed the pies.
A peek in the lower windows of the house showed the Baron that there was little activity, but not little enough that he could walk around inside without fear of ill-treatment by the people within. They looked, from their clothes, to be doctors, nurses, and orderlies. Walking around outside was hardly a better option. He had been allowed to wander without restraint because he had the pie of ultimate restraint in his hands and a hungry look about him. Further confrontations with the staff here would likely result in further pie, to be eaten voluntarily or otherwise.
The garage, on the other hand, seemed to be a less-utilized area. He had stolen more mundane conveyances than autogyros in his time, and could conceivably hide there until one was left for him to abscond with. He ducked into the little pump room and made himself as comfortable as possible in its shadows.
The Mantis heaved his usual fusillade of sobs into his chest, their traditional target.
--
Zweihauser stirred. There had been a noise, and not a small one. There was still a noise, that of the large garage door being lowered. He settled again, waiting for the door opposite this room to open and close. A few minutes after that, he would wrest open the garage door again and make his escape.
He heard keys in the lock, in the wrong lock. Someone was coming into the room where he hid. Frantically, he opened the locker again and took out the tarp. He removed one of the tent poles and stood to the side of the door. It opened. It opened on the wrong side for him to deliver the swat he had planned on, and it continued after being opened to allow the ingress of whoever was now in the room. In fact, it thudded noisily against the cool metal pole he was holding in both hands. His senses were dulled and he was surprised, but he was not as surprised as the chauffeur and head of the guards, who would find some hours later upon recovering that he had a raised, red lump on his forehead.
The car was almost perfect. It was large and looked quite able to break through any front gate that might present itself. Its perfection was marred only by the fat man asleep inside, who by the quality of his clothes looked every bit its owner. The Baron was not a violent man, and despite the seedy life he'd led, he could never bring himself to conciously commit an act of the sort he just had. That was a movement for a man with a proper surge of animal fear in him, not for one who was in the comparitavely quiet and contemplative mood associated with, say, staring in through the window of a car at an unexpected passenger.
This was damnable. Damned damnable of he did say so himself, and he did. He could not have told you why, while muttering, he took the poles and their tarp with him, but he did, and he set out for the house.
The poles did not fit into each other. He had invented a use for them while sneaking around the back, but that use was prohibitied by their lack of hollow ends and their slight curvature. The long pole he had intended to fashion and by which he meant to climb up to the roof was an impossibility. There were straps about the larger ends, though. He might be able to use one of the smaller ones, with its hook, to grapple up to a second-story window, and from there to the third, and eventually up to the roof, where he could get a lay of the land, now that the fog had cleared.
The rods were light considering their size, but were nonetheless made of a strong metal. The windows of the house, on the other hand, were thin to a fault. The noise produced when the two met stirred the Mantis. He had been so filled with despair as to overlook the ease of escape, but seeing it so facilitated, he leapt through the jagged hole and very nearly missed the Baron, who had dropped the poles to the ground and covered his face to avoid the few fragments of glass that fell out rather than in.
It was then that his new friend did a curious thing. He began laughing, a loud, braying laugh. He then affixed the poles to his wrists and ankles with the straps and began leaping about like a deranged spider monkey. With stilts protruding from his hands and feet, he was fast, strong, and agile, and having been seperated from them for some time, he was overjoyed to find his ability restored.
The Baron gave up trying to get an answer out of him. His name was a laugh, the purpose that had kept him here was as well, and similar practical questions, delivered hurriedly lest the proprietors come to investigate, were all lost into a blanket of joy. "This way," he said resignedly, and started toward the garage.
The garage door was open. The fat man was cranking the car to life as they approached, stalling it by ham-fisted adjustments of the choke when they arrived. The Baron was about to leap at him; the Mantis was gamboling about without a care in the world. The fat man shrieked as he stomped the accelerator, "Eat my dust, pie-men!" The car stalled again as he popped the clutch.
"I am no pie-man! You are the pie-man," the Baron growled, wrestling with the slobby bulk he'd pulled through the unlocked driver's-side door.
"I'll never eat pie again, after today! And that's no joke to me! I'll have to make do with strudel." The fat man was puffing as he said this, pinning the Baron, who now coughed and sputtered.
"I am beginning to suspect that neither of us is a pie-man," he said from this superlatively uncomfortable position. "If you would care to roll off to the side of me, allowing me to stand, we could all escape and never see pie again. Additionally, the guard I, how you say, incapacitated earlier is waking." He pointed. It was true. The gibbering Mantis and the lumpy oaf piled into passenger seats, the latter crammed awkwardly into the front one so that the former could stretch his stilts in the back. The baron expertly cranked the engine and put the car into gear. He followed the dirt path before him to the gate and nearly ran down a surprised orderly.
An hour passed, and another. They had turned left out of the complex and followed the road after that. Eventually they began to talk. The subject turned first to the Mantis, who had, as he said, "come this close" to cursing his father forever. The man had been two kinds of doctor in addition to a maniac, had talked of some day producing a ship that could sail on the ether instead of the ocean, and had put forth many curious ideas about child psychology, one of which he tested on his own son. The idea was to see what effect would be had on the psychology, physiology, and the interaction of the two if a child were raised never to crawl on its own hands and knees, never to walk on its own feet, but to only use stilts. At first he had been clumsier than other children, but later, as a man with one arm will build up strength in the other, he had become more capable with his stilts than ordinary people were with only the gifts of God. As a result, he had been completely devoid of physical strength and equilibrium without the stilts, which he only took off to sleep.
The Baron recounted various tales of deeds he had done, which were rascally but charming.
The fat man, whose name was Gordon, talked about being fat.
Another hour passed. The Mantis called attention to the left side of the road, to what had been thickening there since they had passed out of sight of the house and its grounds. The road ahead was as clear as it had been and as blank and featureless as well. They agreed, and the baron slowed and turned the wheel. They rode off into mist.
The Baron and the Mantis both woke to a fog. The Mantis was unsurprised; a fog of his own making had impeded his senses lately. The Baron, on the other hand, though well-accustomed to waking up outdoors and in peculiar surroundings, was disconcerted. Every joint in his body ached and it seemed that new joints had been added where his ribs curved and in the center of his forehead, and they ached as well. Both of them immediately blamed the pies.
A peek in the lower windows of the house showed the Baron that there was little activity, but not little enough that he could walk around inside without fear of ill-treatment by the people within. They looked, from their clothes, to be doctors, nurses, and orderlies. Walking around outside was hardly a better option. He had been allowed to wander without restraint because he had the pie of ultimate restraint in his hands and a hungry look about him. Further confrontations with the staff here would likely result in further pie, to be eaten voluntarily or otherwise.
The garage, on the other hand, seemed to be a less-utilized area. He had stolen more mundane conveyances than autogyros in his time, and could conceivably hide there until one was left for him to abscond with. He ducked into the little pump room and made himself as comfortable as possible in its shadows.
The Mantis heaved his usual fusillade of sobs into his chest, their traditional target.
--
Zweihauser stirred. There had been a noise, and not a small one. There was still a noise, that of the large garage door being lowered. He settled again, waiting for the door opposite this room to open and close. A few minutes after that, he would wrest open the garage door again and make his escape.
He heard keys in the lock, in the wrong lock. Someone was coming into the room where he hid. Frantically, he opened the locker again and took out the tarp. He removed one of the tent poles and stood to the side of the door. It opened. It opened on the wrong side for him to deliver the swat he had planned on, and it continued after being opened to allow the ingress of whoever was now in the room. In fact, it thudded noisily against the cool metal pole he was holding in both hands. His senses were dulled and he was surprised, but he was not as surprised as the chauffeur and head of the guards, who would find some hours later upon recovering that he had a raised, red lump on his forehead.
The car was almost perfect. It was large and looked quite able to break through any front gate that might present itself. Its perfection was marred only by the fat man asleep inside, who by the quality of his clothes looked every bit its owner. The Baron was not a violent man, and despite the seedy life he'd led, he could never bring himself to conciously commit an act of the sort he just had. That was a movement for a man with a proper surge of animal fear in him, not for one who was in the comparitavely quiet and contemplative mood associated with, say, staring in through the window of a car at an unexpected passenger.
This was damnable. Damned damnable of he did say so himself, and he did. He could not have told you why, while muttering, he took the poles and their tarp with him, but he did, and he set out for the house.
The poles did not fit into each other. He had invented a use for them while sneaking around the back, but that use was prohibitied by their lack of hollow ends and their slight curvature. The long pole he had intended to fashion and by which he meant to climb up to the roof was an impossibility. There were straps about the larger ends, though. He might be able to use one of the smaller ones, with its hook, to grapple up to a second-story window, and from there to the third, and eventually up to the roof, where he could get a lay of the land, now that the fog had cleared.
The rods were light considering their size, but were nonetheless made of a strong metal. The windows of the house, on the other hand, were thin to a fault. The noise produced when the two met stirred the Mantis. He had been so filled with despair as to overlook the ease of escape, but seeing it so facilitated, he leapt through the jagged hole and very nearly missed the Baron, who had dropped the poles to the ground and covered his face to avoid the few fragments of glass that fell out rather than in.
It was then that his new friend did a curious thing. He began laughing, a loud, braying laugh. He then affixed the poles to his wrists and ankles with the straps and began leaping about like a deranged spider monkey. With stilts protruding from his hands and feet, he was fast, strong, and agile, and having been seperated from them for some time, he was overjoyed to find his ability restored.
The Baron gave up trying to get an answer out of him. His name was a laugh, the purpose that had kept him here was as well, and similar practical questions, delivered hurriedly lest the proprietors come to investigate, were all lost into a blanket of joy. "This way," he said resignedly, and started toward the garage.
The garage door was open. The fat man was cranking the car to life as they approached, stalling it by ham-fisted adjustments of the choke when they arrived. The Baron was about to leap at him; the Mantis was gamboling about without a care in the world. The fat man shrieked as he stomped the accelerator, "Eat my dust, pie-men!" The car stalled again as he popped the clutch.
"I am no pie-man! You are the pie-man," the Baron growled, wrestling with the slobby bulk he'd pulled through the unlocked driver's-side door.
"I'll never eat pie again, after today! And that's no joke to me! I'll have to make do with strudel." The fat man was puffing as he said this, pinning the Baron, who now coughed and sputtered.
"I am beginning to suspect that neither of us is a pie-man," he said from this superlatively uncomfortable position. "If you would care to roll off to the side of me, allowing me to stand, we could all escape and never see pie again. Additionally, the guard I, how you say, incapacitated earlier is waking." He pointed. It was true. The gibbering Mantis and the lumpy oaf piled into passenger seats, the latter crammed awkwardly into the front one so that the former could stretch his stilts in the back. The baron expertly cranked the engine and put the car into gear. He followed the dirt path before him to the gate and nearly ran down a surprised orderly.
An hour passed, and another. They had turned left out of the complex and followed the road after that. Eventually they began to talk. The subject turned first to the Mantis, who had, as he said, "come this close" to cursing his father forever. The man had been two kinds of doctor in addition to a maniac, had talked of some day producing a ship that could sail on the ether instead of the ocean, and had put forth many curious ideas about child psychology, one of which he tested on his own son. The idea was to see what effect would be had on the psychology, physiology, and the interaction of the two if a child were raised never to crawl on its own hands and knees, never to walk on its own feet, but to only use stilts. At first he had been clumsier than other children, but later, as a man with one arm will build up strength in the other, he had become more capable with his stilts than ordinary people were with only the gifts of God. As a result, he had been completely devoid of physical strength and equilibrium without the stilts, which he only took off to sleep.
The Baron recounted various tales of deeds he had done, which were rascally but charming.
The fat man, whose name was Gordon, talked about being fat.
Another hour passed. The Mantis called attention to the left side of the road, to what had been thickening there since they had passed out of sight of the house and its grounds. The road ahead was as clear as it had been and as blank and featureless as well. They agreed, and the baron slowed and turned the wheel. They rode off into mist.