Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 24

Dak's father did not take her to see the Encampment on the day he had promised. He remained in his bed until well past noon, and when he did finally emerge, Dak made an evaluation of his grim appearance and decided not to press the matter of their visit. She decided to provide him the day to recover his usual humour, and the next morning he awoke with a new vigour and a massive appetite. After breakfast, they had left the Workshops and descended to the arena-field. The day's bouts had not begun, but the Encampment beyond the field was already busy, and they had spent the morning among the stalls and attractions.

As was usual, she did not mention her father's condition of the previous day, or the circumstances that had caused it. Only when they came across a stall, backed by rotund barrels of ellesh wood, where people sat with tall tankards, did the subject arise.

"Primar ale," said her father, eyeing up the barrels. "Fine stuff. I have tasted it once, when I was in the south."

"Would you like some, father?"

Her father had looked down at her and seen her face.

"I am knowing," he said with a smile. "That primar ale does not travel well. I think that, until I visit the hills around Bright Lake again, I will be happier with the memory of it."

"I am thinking that would be a good idea, father."

Her father had smiled and guided her away from the stall.

Dak was finding the Encampment to be a wonderful, if somewhat crowded, place. She was used to the noise and smells of the Workshops, but the avenues of bright tents were something wholly new. The press of people they passed through was claustrophobic, and she would have found it unbearable had she not been the height she was. It also helped that she was accompanied by her father. Wherever he chose to go, people seemed to move politely from his path, or make a space for him at any stall or attraction he decided to investigate.

Still, she was feeling a certain amount of weariness with the constant press of bodies, along with their perpetual noise, so she was quite glad when her father steered her to the edge of one of the Encampment's open spaces. A troupe of brightly dyed mowmok acrobats were performing there, balancing on each other's shoulders and linking their arms and tails to form towers of themselves. The surrounding crowd cheered and clapped as two more of the creatures, one dyed black, the other white, and each wearing a grotesque mask, clambered upwards and began to chase each other, leaping from one living tower to the next.

"They are impressive critters, are you not thinking?"

"Certainly," said Dak.

"But I think that we will leave them to their antics. It is time that we were finding someplace to eat."

They stopped at a stall selling grilled fire-hood steaks stuffed with cadir grains, which had been fried with socro, and Dak had nearly choked on the inferno that it set in her mouth. Her father had grinned, his own face turning bright red from his mouthful of food. Once they had both doused their tongues with cups of ghat milk, their combined gagged weeping subsided to coughing chortles.

"By Yeltov that is hot!" said her father, inspecting the red meat he held in front of him, before taking another huge bite.

They finished their meal, with the help of a few more cups of milk, and then continued their day. They passed down a wide avenue of stalls selling stoneware, which was thronged with local farmers and ranchers who were inspecting the arrays of plates, bowls and cups. The goods on sale were mostly modest items, their ornamentation simple, but every item there had been made by Engineers, so their quality was assured.

They had found the further reaches of the Encampment, where the crowds were not so pressing, when her father gave an excited roar.

"By the sky-metal rain! Look who it is!" He crossed the avenue, bellowing as he went. "Vlontell, you old rogue!"