Caravan

The caravan hovered out of the fog. It was lead by six elephants. In their wake traveled a large hunting party, along with two troupes of dancers and actors, thier crew and technical staff, and - just behind them - stock supplies of wine, surfactant, kahammi leaves, and hashish. The hash rode suspended in a tracings suspended between two donkeys. Wrapped, in multiple layers of leaf and cloth, against the sun and the elements. Wrapped better, in truth, than most of the performers. It was the hash that Lu smelled on the breeze swelling before the massive column of bodies. It was the smell that made Lu climb a gigantic boulder adjacent to the caravan track. The mammoth drivers saw him before they heard him and when they heard him they stopped. Immediately.

Heyoooooohhhhhhhhhhhh.

Lu yelling like a bird. He bounded down the boulder side as the big train stopped. Ran to the front to stand between the two front-guard Elephants. The beasts gave him wide berth. Their handlers, noting this, drew swords. They looked down at Lu.

Oh stop it. I need a fuckin’ ride. First off though, can one of you tell me, is this Jerusalem? Are we…Are you coming from Jerusalem? I need to get there. I have money!

He held up a large bag of indeterminate-but-obviously-high dollar value. The guards looked at each other, sheathing swords and going to the rear to find the Van driver.

***

Lu spent most of his time on the road to Jerusalem in his usual traveling state. That is to say: very drunk, and flitting in and out of consciousness at the very rear of the column. The road was smoother back there, trampled as it was, by his fellows ahead. It so happened in this instance, Lu found himself riding with the hash, suspended in a makeshift litter between the two donkeys, a situation none to pleasing for anybody but Lu himself.

After a few days, as the train got nearer to the holy city, he was summoned off the donkeys and made to stand before the nobleman Kleeg, who apparently owned the entire operation, and who, it was made abundantly clear, wanted his hash back. He had been en route to Jerusalem - he said - to unload it to a lucky few for a healthy profit.

A special preparation.

He’d said, in answer to his passenger’s ample appreciation,

...Made only once every 10 years by a secret guild working by night in the village where I live.

And indeed it was. Special and tasty and ridiculously potent. Eyes were reddened and tongues tied wherever it was brought out, and the slab that Lu had been terminating with extreme prejudice up till just this moment, had been accounted for and monetized. It was put to Lu that he’d never be able to pay for the oily-potent goop, and must settle his account before any further consumption. They told him to cease and desist, at first with impressed smiles but later with a sort of regretful sneer, and finally with a severe, aggressive bark. The separating of his head from his shoulders was broached more than once. Lu listened to all of it looking intense and thoughtful. When - at last - the last caravan-passenger had had his say on the matter, he sat quiet for a time, than cleared his throat and began to speak.

***

Two of the wagons in the caravan belonged to a man named Katesh Katesh. They drove the rear, took things a bit easier for it than the trail-blazing vanguard up front. Their cargo, mysterious and swaddled though it was, was very delicate, and did not travel well. Still, those in the caravan who knew things knew that Katesh was a renowned master of the taxonomies, and was traveling East on his way to the Orient. He had been sending riders out, one a day to secure passage there from the port city of Baht, just south of the holy lands. Lu braced Katesh one steamy afternoon as the Van sided a river called Fikteh, inquiring about the man’s travel frustrations and also about the well-hidden treasures so carefully packed in the wagons. He told Katesh:

I know some smugglers that operate out of Baht, and they - each of them - owe me a favor. Let me get a peak at what you’ve got stashed in those cabs and I’ll see you safely to the East without so much as a penny falling off your books.

Katesh was a smart man and a brilliant judge of character. He didn’t find himself inclined to entertain the shifty man who’d been smoking all the drivers hashish. For one thing, he stunk. Badly. Lu hadn’t showered in almost a year by the time the train crossed into the outskirts of Baht, and anyone - man and beast alike - caught in his draft would risk stomach ailments and nightmares from the stench. The stinky little whippet was making physical sense however, and in the end, Katesh was a businessman before he was anything else. He told his new patron:

I’ll let you into the menagerie tonight after we’ve allowed for our cookfires and prayer. You may spend as much time as you like amongst my wares for the next few days. All I ask in return is the arrangement you promised me at the rates we discussed.

And so Lu was allowed amongst the animals. The Cars were organized only by size, with the larger beasts forward in the cabs. Katesh had his people remove the contents of both cabs that first night so that Lu might examine the properties in comfort. The old taxonomist Katesh handed Lu a bright torch and left him with his creations. Lu was beside himself. The happiest he’d been in years by quite a good bit. The animals of earth had been his creations, and yet he’d not hardly laid eyes on any of the sneaky bastards. The first four pieces - two large male groundhogs, a wolverine, and a brown desert wolf - were things he’d never seen except in their creation. Lu found himself tearing up as he examined the contours of musculature and brilliant functionality of pelts and teeth. Next he pulled the covers from a great white mountain lion almost four feet high at the shoulder and at least eight feet in length. He marveled at the ferocious thing from all angles, thinking back with fondness on the nights he and his best friend created this lethal, brilliant creature. He moved slowly, careful to put the tarps and cloths back just so on Katesh’s miracles. Before the sun came up he’d spent quality time with three types of giant sand rats, a male and female three toed sloth, and a family of giant African hedgehogs. He’d studied the claw function and position of an evil-looking black panther, and wondered at a female crocodile Katesh said was caught from salt water, unwittingly falling victim to a fisherman’s net. Just moments before the sun crested the far hills in front of them, Katesh had his people unwrap the final piece: A giant white and black stripped tiger from the triple-canopy jungles of the West Indies.

This devil killed an entire village one day last year when the spring floods were late. When a beast of this size gets hungry, the gods help anybody alive in a fifty mile radius.

Lu nodded and kept staring. If he hadn’t been on business here he’d have blown the entire caravan to hell and taken the amazing pieces for himself. As it was, he was forced to remain on task. His friend needed him and he meant to answer the call. He thanked Katesh and gave him a bag of gold dust in appreciation. The ships were waiting, as promised, for the old huntsman in Baht, and his passage to the Orient was safe and comfortable.

***

I’m sure you don’t mean the things you say to me sir, and so I’m giving you a chance to reneg. One chance. Do not waste it: Apologize to me out loud, here in front of the van, and you’ll remain the whole man, standing here before me. Deny me my courtesy though, and we’re going to have trouble. A pound of hashish will not be worth the kind of trouble I speak of. I implore you: Let us make amends.

The Caravan driver, however, was a dry and humorless man. He didn’t hold with theft and he didn’t hold with threats on his person delivered publically, and with a marked dearth of respect. His answer came quick and direct: He whipped out his cock and began to piss into the black leather satchel that served as Lu’s travel bag and portable office. Lu heard the piss dropping into the leather and looked down to see his papers and baubles drowned in yellow, desert-honed piss. A steam began to rise, and urine splatter began to turn the sand black around the bag. Still Kleeg pissed on and on, muttering curses in seven different languages and laughing. Lu just stood there watching, a broad smile blooming on his face.

When he was done pissing, Kleeg kicked the bag over and a miniature piss-tsunami rolled out. Lu’s sandals got caught in the deluge and before he knew it his feet were soaking as well. Kleeg closed the distance between them, the fingers of his left hand hovering over the massive gold scimitar at his waist. His fist closed around the hilt as he approached and he was just beginning to draw on Lu when his head fell off.

Or, in any case, that’s what it looked like to the throng of people who’d - by this time - formed a fighting pit around Kleeg and his tormentor. None of them had seen the razor sharp, black bladed dagger Lu had knitted into his linen pants. None of them saw Lu’s hand sweep up, grabbing the blade, and then across, separating Kleeg’s head. It looked as if the Van driver’s head had just hopped off his body. Lu let it tumble a few times in the air before catching it in two hands. The body stood in front of Lu after having closed, but it’s arms were bothering about his neck and shoulders, frantically trying to find the missing cranium. Two stanching fountains of crimson slime were blasting two feet high out of the head hole and the crowd was vexed. Lu heard women faint and children cry. He heard Katesh the taxonomist crying about sorcery. Holding Kleeg’s head in front of him, he turned to address Kleeg's body:

Begone with you, you are no longer needed here. Run as far as you can without stopping, and run towards the west man! Word of what I've done here will spread like fire through dry twigs. The emporers will have the dogs after you before the sun rises.

Kleeg's body looked forlorn and offended, making an awkward situation even worse with a pitiful grab at it's former head. Lu jerked the head away and hissed:

GO you fucker!

The headless body ran then, turning fast and vanishing into the gloaming. Lightning bolts of red and silver zapped and popped down around him, urging his haste.
Lu heard the van swooning and freaking out over the pyrotechnics. He'd made more of a scene than he'd intended. Turning again to the head in his hands, he addressed it as if Kleeg was still in there:

You see where you gave me no choice there, sir? I hate to cause any pain or discomfort, but without respect I am nothing.

The crowd had lowered it’s collective voice to hear what the crazy man was saying to his victim. So by the time Lu was through, they’d become almost completely silent. Silent enough to hear Kleeg respond in kind:

It’s me who needs to apologize, my friend! This heat gets to me, and I cannot hold my words. I’m sorry to you and your family.

At this, the caravan was dissolved. Most of the wagon train had begun to disperse quickly at the first few words from the head. By the time he’d finished begging forgiveness, the wagons, the drivers, the livestock and all the wares were gone. They scattered in twenty different directions, just trying to put distance between themselves and the obvious black magic that was afoot between the two men. All were gone save one: The taxonomist Katesh meant to collect his debt despite magic of any kind. Lu, again, found himself admiring the desert hunter’s style. He grabbed the reigns of Katesh’s wagon himself and vowed to see the pieces safe to port and on board. In return he asked only one thing. Another simple courtesy that he was certain Katesh would not begrudge him. That very night, the taxonomist, his wares, and all his people were tucked safely onto two giant longships bound for the east. Lu saw them off and watched them till they were mere dots on a graying seascape. Then he left town for the hills that surrounded it. In spite of all the fun, he still had his appointments to keep.

***

This one? Oh no sir, I couldn’t possibly. The piece shouldn’t even be on display. It speaks to me, and so I wish to show it around, but to part with it, for some paltry sum agreed upon under a baking, alien sky? My dear dead ancestors would never forgive it…

Katesh hadn’t been in the Orient long but already he saw it’s people were as enamored and adept at the art of bargaining as he himself. The challenge made every day an adventure.

Surely sir, there must be some price upon which we may build a deal. I agree, the item here is singular and unique. All the more reason to strike now though, no? While the thing is still new. Before unforeseen disasters might make themselves known. The East is a big place, and you are but one man.

Two men you ignorant horse-piss-face!

The beast was yelling up at the customer again. Not helping anyone’s cause. Katesh looked on a bit before throwing the tarp over his old friend Kleeg. No matter how much money the talking head cost him in sales not made, the old desert merchant still felt an advantage in the bargain. At the very least he got a hearty, daily laugh watching the Van driver shout down potential buyers in the marketplaces and shops. Swearing at them in an alien tongue until Katesh tarped him, once again, and set out for the next town. The man Lu - he allowed - had done him a boon, and a little venom spoken - hilariously - from a stuffed groundhog with a man’s talking head had proved well worth the trouble.