Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 26: The Magic of Forward Motion

A patchwork of different materials made Hefestia's rural roads. Brick, at times. Else flagstones, else pebbles mortared tight as grains on a wheat stalk. And at times the road became a smoothed mud, mysteriously solidified to stone.

That last surface puzzled Barnaby. He kicked at the gray substance, thinking it made a strangely dull path to walk. Like traveling a road paved with autumn cloud.

Same as the country lanes, the houses scattered left and right kept to no common design. One would be an egg-like construction with a domed roof of metal and glass. The next would be a wooden box with tilting towers, each topped with metal ornaments that spun and glittered. Beyond that waited a cottage of wattle and thatch looking to have been stolen from some croft of Demetia... excepting the bronze man by the gate that waved with clockwork friendliness. When the wind blew, this mechanical man bowed; bowed deep as courtier to king.

Delighted, Barnaby waved and bowed right back, till his friends pulled him on down the road.

The road itself was not left to Benefactors. They stepped aside to let quicker folk pass. These might be walking by sane and proper feet. Or astride horse, else in carts. And every so often would come some astonishing new method of travel.

Barnaby gawked at a man seated on a spider-web of wheels. He sat high as lord on horse, pumping legs up, down, up. Clearly this propelled the miraculous thing.

The others made way for the marvel to pass; but Barnaby stood in the road staring so delighted that the man turned his wheeled steed about, circling Barnaby, tinkling a tin bell. Barnaby laughed, the man laughed. Then waved goodbye, farewell, continuing on down the road.

"How does he not fall over?" demanded Barnaby addressing the sky he credited with such wonders.

"How do you not fall over?" demanded Bodkin. "What with you staring like a kitten on a fence."

They walked on. Barnaby pondered exactly why he didn't fall when walking. It'd never occurred to him before. But on sober consideration, walking was a precarious business. One leaned forwards till about to topple; then shot a foot out, rolling to balance atop that foot while tipping forwards yet more, preparing to catch oneself with the other foot...

Barnaby stumbled, his over-considered feet tangling.

"Do be more careful," demanded the magical tutor upon his shoulder. "I might have been injured."

Barnaby prepared to share his observations of walking, but down the road now came a carriage. At first Barnaby thought it a cart rolling free and afire, for no horses pulled it, and smoke trailed behind.

But no, a man sat in the front, leading invisible steeds. He wore goggles and helmet same as a proper directable pilot. Barnaby waved, but the mechanism did not slow, the man did not wave back.

"How?" he asked the world.

"The wheels turn by burning wood under a kettle of water," said Cedric.

"Ah," said Barnaby. "That explains it nicely." He returned to the study of how he walked. Step, step. Dull business. But suppose... suppose he were to put wheels on his feet?

"Maybe we could obtain a steam car," mused Bodkin. "Get us north fast as blink."

"First," said Cedric, "There shall be no thieving, absconding, nor least illegal alteration of ownership within Hefestia. We have been chased like foxes in a house of hounds across three lands. Let us for this one day walk in peace."

"Bah," said Bodkin. "We stole a warship. You going to fret over a mechanical cart?"

"Second," continued Cedric. "The steam cars are insanely dangerous. Pressure oft builds in the kettle till it bursts, sending man and machine to the Fields."