Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs (trilogy)

Kingdom Of The Nanosaurs - chapter 18

18. Windsong and Lovechild 

Lin opened her eyes and saw nothing but whiteness. Something soft and yielding was enfolding her and the smell of damp, chemically treated fabric entered her nostrils. She was disoriented and thought the voices she could hear must be part of a dream. As if a curtain was suddenly drawn, something was pulled away from her face. She realized with shocked relief that she had fallen onto the roof of the tent next to the sculpture.

Anxious faces peered at her. ‘She’s okay,” yelled a voice somewhere at the back. Lin heard a crowd cheering and then a pair of strong arms reached into the partly collapsed tent that had broken Lin’s fall and probably save her life, and gathered her into his arms. She looked around and then up. The pterodactyls had perched atop B of the Bang and were gazing around nonchalantly. The man who had picked her up was large with a big, bushy moustache, a bulbous nose, long straggly grey hair and was wearing a cowboy hat with shells decorating the brim that rattled as he moved his head. He wore a large gold earring and he smelt of sweet smoke. But he had kind, amused eyes. Lin trusted him instantly. He was dressed in hippie clothes of bright colours and was clearly a leader amongst his troupe.

“Glad you dropped in, little lady,” he growled with a twinkling smile. “I’m Gabriel, Gabriel Windsong. And who might you be?”

“Lin,” she replied shyly. “Lin Rainbow.”

“Well, Lin Rainbow, I don’t know what you were doing with those hippie birds but that’s another story. Things are going to get a little rough around here soon. Those shadows are everywhere and there is a great pool of uncool vibrations pervading the atmosphere. We’re heading down south to Buckingham Palace to protest. Would you like to come along? You’re more than welcome.”

“That’s just where I was going,” said Lin. “The I-Ching sent me, and my friends will be there. We were hitching on a train with Taurus, our pet minotaur, when I was snatched.”

“She sounds like one of us,” said a soft female voice. A tall and languid middle-aged woman had appeared by Gabriel’s shoulder. Her auburn hair was a tangle of plaits and she had friendly, smiling face free of wrinkles. “Do you want to come with us, Lin Rainbow?”

Lin nodded.

“This is Regina Lovechild,” Gabriel introduced the woman as they turned and walked through the curious crowd towards the lead hippie wagon, the most brightly painted of all. In the background, there was more angry screaming and the unmistakable roar of pent-up frustration. Pushing through the crowd also was a couple of police officers looking stressed and cross. Both had meerkat nanosaurs hopping by their side pointing and chattering.

“Let’s hit the road fast,” said Gabriel in his deep voice. “There are some really bad vibes around here and we don’t want to engage in philosophical discussions with the pigs.”

“They can’t do anything to me,” Lin protested. “I’m an American citizen.”

Gabriel laughed out loud at this. “The world has gone crazy, Lin Rainbow. I wouldn’t count on that fact helping you anymore.”

Moments later, Lin had been deposited in the back of the truck while Gabriel climbed into the driving seat and revved the engine. Just as the police officers reached the truck, it pulled away, followed by a retinue of caravans, trucks and Volkswagen Beetles.

Inside the truck were seven people including two small children. They were of varying ages and were all smiling. Everyone seemed happy to see her. Regina sat down beside her and introduced everybody. “This is Lin Rainbow,” she told them. “She reads the I-Ching. Lin, this is Woody, Omar, Jingle-Jangle, Forest and Boleyn and those two little people are Petal and Byron. Jingle-Jangle is the one who saved you from those freaks.” Lin nodded to everyone, smiled in gratitude at Jingle-Jangle, and looked around as the truck trundled through the outskirts of Manchester heading for the M6. The interior was heavily and ornately decorated with floating mobiles, cushions, streamers, posters and brightly contrasting flowers strewn everywhere. There was a sweet, heady but not unpleasant odour in the van. Lin liked it. The others all lounged around smiling and saying little. Then Jingle-Jangle said. “Hey, Lin, you can read the I-Ching. Do a reading for us.”

Somewhat embarrassed at first, Lin took her portable I-Ching from her inside pocket and prepared herself. Her silence affected the others who began to chant quietly. Regina took a biscuit tin from a cupboard and opened it. It contained a neat pile small, pretty cakes. She passed the tin around. Lin took a cake and ate it hungrily. It tasted sweet and pleasant, not at all like a normal biscuit. She allowed her mind to free fall and passed the Chinese coins to Jingle-Jangle and told him to throw them six times and let them fall. He was to think of a question as he did so. Lin felt herself smiling uncontrollably, just like the others. Her inner mind was opening like flower in spring and the hexagrams suddenly had real meaning. She realized then that she had never before plunged so deeply into the wisdom of the I-Ching as she was doing at that moment. Bright colours and auras surrounded everyone and everything in the van. She gazed at the hexagrams cast by Jingle-Jangle and began to interpret them. She looked up at Jingle-Jangle. He must be about twenty-one, Lin guessed. He was very handsome with an unlined, suntanned face that seemed to laugh a lot.

“Can you work out my question?” he asked her.

Lin concentrated and didn’t speak for a while. Then she said. “You’re supposed to tell me the question. But, I think you’re asking about the future of us all, I mean, everyone on the Earth.”

The young man sat back into his cushions and regarded her with genuine interest. “I asked what these shadows were and why the animals have left us,” he replied.

“All I can tell you is the I-Ching says you are part of a bigger future. It says you will be exalted in a war that is to come.”

“Hey, no wars, Lin Rainbow. I’m not one for wars. You must have got something wrong.”

“The I-Ching never lies,” Lin retorted. “This is not a war with guns. Your war is going be a spirit war, a war of ideas. The shadow things are some kind of advance spirit form that’s come here to find out about us. My friend Winston, he’s an orangutan, says that he knows why the animals have left and that’s the reason he was transformed. Something happened to him and then he could speak. And he’s a genius. So, he’s been left behind to remind the world of the animal kingdom in case people forget, and to explain why they left. He’s the real missing link. But my other friend Morgan, he has to go on a quest. He’s memorized this algo something or other, like a formula, that can make the world go back to the way it was, the way it should be. And you will meet him but not in this world.”

“Don’t give our American lady any more biscuits,” said Gabriel, laughing from the driving seat.

“No, all this is true,” Lin protested, half laughing despite herself. “You’re going to be famous, Jingle-Jangle, but not with that name. You will be a crusader and you will write a book. But it’s not going to be until your empty star has filled. And that will be in fourteen months and twelve days from now.”

“You sound really convincing, wow!” breathed Regina Lovechild putting her arm around Lin’s shoulders. “What do you think, Jingle-Jangle? My son famous, eh?”

“A spirit war, cool,” said Jingle-Jangle. “So this orangutan can talk? Is this the same ape that’s been on the news? This guy Natzler, the one we’re protesting about, has been trying to find him.”

“Yes,” said Lin. “Natzler captured me, Morgan and Winston and put us in dungeons on this island in Scotland. We escaped because Taurus, he’s this giant minotaur, helped us and we were hitchhiking on a goods train when those nano birds grabbed me and brought me here.”

The hippies stared at her but not with disbelief like she expected but with complete trust. It all seemed perfectly reasonable to them.

“So, where is your mother and father, little Rainbow?” asked Regina.

Lin looked down, almost afraid to think or picture their faces. “I’m an orphan,” she said in a tiny voice. “Mom and dad were both killed in a car crash.”

Lin could feel the sympathy exuding from everyone in the van. Regina put her arm around Lin and the girl slumped against her shoulder, barely holding back her tears.

“Why don’t you sleep, Lin Rainbow,” whispered Regina, stroking her hair. “We’ll be at Buckingham Palace pretty soon. I don’t need the I-Ching to tell me that you’re going to meet your friends there. You’re not the only psychic here, by the way.” Regina placed her palm on Lin’s forehead. A pleasant drowsiness crept over her and she realized how tired she was. Within seconds she had curled up like a dormouse inside a nest of cushions and fallen fast asleep.