I don't know if you watched the United States vs. Brazil game in the Women's World Cup, but it was one for the ages.
The United States scored first, outplayed Brazil and led 1-0 at the half.

The United States continued the better play, but with 65 minutes remaining, Brazil benefited from an astonishing series of blunders by the referee.

First, the referee called a penalty kick that was not a penalty for Brazil and gave an American defender a red card that was not a red card, so the US had to play the rest of game with 10 players.

Nevertheless, Hope Solo, the goalkeeper for the US blocked the kick, but then the referee said that Hope had moved too soon off her line (not true) and had the penalty kick retaken and let a different player take the kick, which was unusual. This time Brazil scored, so in full time the teams ended tied 1-1.

The crowd turned against Brazil and began booing loudly, but cheering whenever the USA went into attack.

Brazil scored with about twenty minutes of overtime left, but the player that passed in the assist on the point had been off sides, but the referee didn't call off sides and let the score stand. Brazil 2-1.

However, the Americans didn't give up, but kept attacking and in the final minute of extra time (122nd minute of play, the latest goal scored in World Cup history) Megan Rapinoe put in a perfect cross that Abby Wambach headed into the net for a 2-2 tie. The crowd roared its approval and joy.

Then the game went to penalty kicks. Hope Solo again blocked a kick, so the US won 5-3 on penalty kicks, and the stadium went wild with ecstasy because justice had been served thanks to the grit and belief that the US women had shown.

I was crying and laughing at the same time, clapping and yelling at the wonderful ending to the game.

Watch the replays on ESPN. They're worth seeing.
 
(This first part of the blog is based on an email I sent to my sister.)
 
This World Cup has exceeded my expectations.  All the teams have had quality players, been well coached, and shown a lot of spirit.  Consequently, there have been quite a few upsets.  Germany, the favorite, was sent off by Japan, which later eliminated Sweden.  France had almost as gutsy a performance as the USA when the French team scored in the 88th minute to tie England, and then won in a penalty kick shootout.
 
Japan quickly became my second favorite team as I saw them out-possess and out-shoot their European opponents.
 
The USA elminated France 3-1 in another tough game because France played well, showcasing their speed and shooting skills.
 
Therefore, I'm looking forward to the final match on Sunday when my two favoite teams meet for the championship.  I'm sure it will be another tense struggle between two very good teams. 
 
Here are two haiku poems as tributes to the World Cup:
 
 
"The pink carnations"
Are blooming in Europe’s fields—
Cup them in a vase.


"The pink carnations" is a tribute to the Japanese team, whose nickname is Nadeshika meaning "fringed pink carnations."


"The beast in the air"
Rises over the others' . . .
Summer at goal lines.

"The beast in the air" is what Megan Rapinoe has nicknamed Abby Wambach because she is so proficient at getting above the defense and heading in goals.
 
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Putkwyz, Ch. 19, "Farewell"

19



Farewell



I wish I had a more exciting ending in which I fought off terribly gruesome creatures against treacherous odds, but that’s not the way the world works. Mawgri’s side (Yes, I admit that he had always been partial to Saca and Kunwyz) had the superior technology about which the other side could only guess. The fight would never have been an equal struggle. Thus, we prevailed.

As it turns out, an ATI was not the only device implanted inside Mawgri. He also had a GPS chip with a transmitter, so no matter where he was transported on the surface of Putkwyz, his associates could locate him. His employees aboard his spacecraft in Polimeer (after disposing of the attacking fighters) had gained altitude far above the capabilities of the winged planes of Radimeer and had followed the flight of our captors. They stopped when the GPS inside Mawgri indicated he had stopped.

From that moment they hovered above “Nowhere Land” and observed what was happening below. They gathered data and assessed the situation: the strength of the fort and keep, the number of forces that Kra had at his disposal, the kinds of weapons that army possessed. They were planning a rescue if the imprisonment went beyond a certain number of days.

In this, they cooperated with Sacacon, who had joined his battle fleet and was sailing with it to Myunk. He had on board his ships an attack force of a thousand commandos equipped and trained with my newly designed paraglider. At an appropriate time and armed with automatic weapons, they would have been carried to our site, dropped from planes and glided in to our rescue.

That, of course, didn’t have to happen. Mawgri’s associates knew immediately when his GPS indicated that he had left the fort and was on the move northward. While other ships in his fleet descended to destroy the fort and Kra’s budding army, his own command ship followed us, found us and carried us away to safety. What else could have been the result with our superior technology?

Nonetheless, old technology had gotten us out of the fort: Dukuf’s pharmacopeia of herbs.

After our rescue, we joined Sacacon and his fleet. He was happy to see us well and feted us aboard the flagship. Then we bade him farewell and success with his programs of education and democratization.

We next returned to Polimeer and showed the still-living King Golmon to his people, who, angered by the deception and already annoyed by his sons’ self-centered behavior, revolted and chased the sons away. The three prodigals took another long flight to “Nowhere Land,” not realizing that Emperor Kra (if he lived) had no army or weapons to keep them safe. What became of them no one knows.

Filk was made Captain of the Palace Guards. Dukuf became the head chef of the army. As for Golmon, he immediately began to implement his previous plan of democratization and education. The parliament met and elected him its first prime minister.

Then Sacacon and President Komplas initiated a postwar conference of all national leaders in which was proposed a federation of nations to rule the planet.

Mawgri, Luvark and I headed for Huppof, the bigger moon of Putkwyz. Mawgri had business there, and his ships’ crews were composed of Stuwkreen, who were looking forward to some vacation time. Luvark came with us with Sacacon’s blessing, “Keep those two safe. They are important to us and loved by all of us.”

Luvark came aboard with a satchel that he handed to Mawgri. Mawgri took it and locked it in his safe. For some reason, that secret behavior annoyed me. I never knew all that my beloved was up to.

End of Interplanetary Secret Agent: Book One: Putkwyz
 
In the first ISA novel, Malcolm and Mawgri fight for democracy and the empowerment of individual Putkurs.

Living and teaching

GOLFING THROUGH LIFE


I learned to play golf in 1968 from Mr. William Blatner, who at the time was a 57-year-old high school English teacher. I, too, was a high school English teacher, but I was fresh out of college and on my first paid teaching assignment, and had just realized that I had a lot to learn about the realities of teaching and life.

Mr. Blatner was thin (he smoked) and walked with a limp (he was a veteran of two wars and had been wounded in Korea) and rose a few inches taller than I, so I looked up at his gray eyes. Even at 57 he had a boyish look and wore his hair like Caesar, his straight graying blond hair combed down on every side: to his collar in back, around his ears, and in bangs half way down his forehead in front. He typically donned white or light-colored long-sleeved shirts with dark blue or black pants (sometimes blue jeans) and black cowboy boots. Occasionally, he sported a bolo tie with a turquoise clasp or a black vest.

At the time, Mr. Blatner’s interest in me puzzled me, but in hindsight, I think he perceived that he and I had some things in common, and he wanted to help me in some way. What we had in common was a passion for language, literature and teaching; I knew that then and feel it even more now that I am older than Blatner was then. We were also individualists who had always (in his case) lived life according to his own rules, and would (in my case) live life according to my own rules . . . more than most people do but less than Blatner had. He recognized a similar single-minded focus in me, although I, at 21, thought I was fairly unexceptional.

As a teacher, he was both old-school and innovative at the same time. He taught sentence structure through diagramming, but he made diagramming into works of art as he had the students show off the diagrams by creating diagram murals on the walls of his classroom. He had no tolerance for inattention and could go into a rage if a student’s mind wandered from the lesson, but he could spend hours counseling that same student’s psyche after school, if he thought the student was salvageable from the scrapheap of life. He declaimed poetry with such gusto and emotion that I had seen students leave his class crying because they had been so moved by his rendition of Keats or Tennyson. He taught as if involved with each student both as loco parentis and mentor. I admired him.

I couldn’t quite perform similarly because I was still learning how to keep the little squirmers in their chairs and to get them to do what I wanted them to do—something that is almost impossible to learn at a university before one gets into the classroom. A fresh teacher learns all that in the first six weeks of actually teaching. After those first six weeks, a determined teacher begins to develop the glance and voice that impose themselves on students, so the classroom becomes a kind of orchestra and the teacher a conductor, who, if he or she is skilled enough, directs the students, manages the classroom space, and imbues the pupils with knowledge in a way that an observer would find almost mystically—subtly, yet inspirationally—sublime. Maybe Mr. Blatner saw in me the potential to be such a teacher.

So, he asked me one day if I played golf.

“Never have.”

“Would you like to?”

“I’d like to learn.” (I needed something to entertain myself in the swamplands.)

“It’s a great sport. You play against yourself. Come out with me Saturday, and I’ll teach you the basics. I’ll provide the clubs.”

The golf course in Okeechobee had been built up by dredging and dumping and land-filling and draining near a swamp. From the first tee, one could hear gators growl. The clubhouse was a prefabricated aluminum shed, but without a pro or even a clerk unless a group was playing by appointment.

That Saturday, Blatner and I were the only players on the course, probably because he had me meet him at 7 a.m., less than an hour after the sun had risen to create a low mist over the swamp and adjacent golf course. The insects were ticking loudly, the frogs were croaking, and the birds were cooing and hooting as we lined up our first shots.

He taught me the basics just as he said he would: how to address the ball, how to hold the club handle, how to place the feet, how to swing the club—all on the first tee. My first swing sent the ball slicing into the nearby swamp. He coached me into contacting the ball with the sweet spot of the club head. My second ball hooked left, but the third went up and down the center of the fairway.

“Ok, now you’ve begun playing golf.”

He teed off and sent his ball to within ten feet of the cup on the green of the par 3 first hole.

He showed me how to chip in from where I was: twenty feet off the green. I did and my ball landed behind but close to his ball. He showed me how to use the putter. I putted and missed. He putted in for an ace. I knocked in my second putt for a bogie (disregarding the two sliced or hooked Mulligans).

Then we were treated to the sight of an amber-eyed doe and her speckled fawn trotting across the next fairway. Later, a goose and her goslings waddling. Even later, a rabbit and her kits hopping.

We played nine holes, by which time he was probably tiring of his less apt partner, who spent as much time admiring the wildlife as he did concentrating on the next shot. Blatner was very good: he consistently shot in the mid-to-low 70s as he did that day. Meanwhile, I felt good if I managed a double bogie. At the end of the round, Blatner said, “You can keep those clubs and bag. They’re an old set I’ve had for years.”

“Thanks,” I said, wondering why he felt so earnestly that golf and I should bond.

Thus, he had hooked me. Because I was married, I couldn’t always play when Blatner played, but I made it out a few times before the year ended, usually playing a solitary round, enjoying the wildlife—including one day seeing a Florida panther run across the first fairway just after I had launched my ball. I had hit the ball well and watched it climb and arch toward the flag. The sharp-eyed predator saw the ball and did a double-take as the ball swished overhead, perhaps momentarily thinking that the fluttering, spinning white orb might be a wounded bird. I held my breath and my stance until I saw the big cat disappear into the trees of a nearby hammock. Then I walked forward and two putted to par the hole.

I liked the exercise: the walk in the sun along a scenic route of open course, swamp, and wildlife. Being solitary didn’t bother me, for I could think and create between strokes. However, what I enjoyed most was the steadying effect that golf had on me, and this is the great secret of golf: the game teaches patience and forbearance. The golfer—especially if he plays alone as I did—is faced with his or her own shortcomings; he or she must overcome frustration (the ball landing just short of a ridge and rolling back), incompetence (hooking into a water hazard), arrogance (over-hitting and adding strokes), bad luck (the ball nicking a pebble and bouncing sideways), and apprehension (calming oneself before a putt to save par). After enough rounds around the golf course, a player learns not to get too depressed no matter through what catastrophe he or she has just maneuvered, nor to get too elated by an ace or a chip-in because more challenges lie ahead. At each hole the golfer has a chance to improve or a chance to fall apart. Either good or bad can happen next, so keeping an even keel is essential. Keeping faith in oneself is paramount.

I believe now that Blatner wanted me to play golf because he thought I needed something to teach me to stay steady; he certainly didn’t need my company, for he was a solitary soul outside the classroom. Maybe he could see that my marriage was not solid and wanted some solace for me when the marriage finally ended. Maybe he could see that I was too willing to see the good in others and would be disappointed and wanted me to be self-reliant and centered to withstand those disappointments that would come.

Besides golf, Blatner and I had other points of convergence.

We were both writers. Using a manual Remington typewriter on weekends and nights, I was clicking and clacking away on my first novel manuscript and boring my needy wife a la Hemingway. Blatner claimed to write in longhand and on top of his refrigerator had a cardboard box stuffed with his magnum opus, a gigantic unfinished manuscript a la Thomas Wolfe. I’ve often wondered what happened to that textured cache of lonely sweat and inspired blood. Had he ever gotten it published? (My first one never found an audience.) Had he ever attempted to publish it? Or, postmortem, had it been thrown out with his remnants by an oblivious landlord? Surely he has passed—a war-wounded smoker and fugitive with secret stresses couldn’t have lived much past age 60.

In addition to writing, we were part of a group that was invited to dine with the Episcopalian priest “Ace” Scovanner and his wife on Sundays. Those gatherings usually included the young draft dodgers. Because of the Vietnam War, never had Okeechobee had such an assemblage of intellectual teachers. They came from everywhere: University of Chicago, Ithaca College, University of Pennsylvania (Tom Runge, who shared with me The Sotweed Factor [John Barth] and Anti-intellectualism in America [Richard Hofstadter]), University of North Carolina, Duke University (Nick Ciompi and his wife, who turned me on to Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?; Nick’s father had played violin for Toscanini), Rutgers, and several Florida colleges and universities.

Those dinners were lively. Mrs. Scovanner (also an English teacher) was a wonderful cook, so, for most of us, her fare was like dining at home, getting a savory home-cooked meal: beef or pork roast with potatoes and salad accompanied by wine. We dug in. The conversation jumped from laments about the war to comic plaints about the tribulations of teaching to eruptions against the cultural abyss into which we had fallen. We leaped in.

Blatner was often the contrarian: scoffing at others’ wanting to avoid war, condemning the youthful teachers for their disparaging comments about the rural cultural aridity. One night, he told of teaching in New Mexico in a reservation school without electricity or in-door plumbing and how the students stopped attending when the local river (a stream by Florida standards) ran dry. However, Blatner kept coming to the get-togethers, for I believe he thought of us young teachers as interns and of himself as a mentor; besides, the meals were undoubtedly the best of the week for him.

However, Mr. Blatner turned out not to be the paragon I had imagined.

For one, he was a war lover during an unpopular war. Although many of the teachers at Okeechobee High School were there to avoid the military draft, Mr. Blatner had volunteered for Vietnam, but his bum leg and age had disqualified him. He told me one day that every young man should experience war firsthand. I didn’t believe that then, and I don’t believe that now, for life is a tough-enough struggle without the misery of war. He had a romantic mind that charged with the light brigade, unsuited for a reality of mega-tonnage nuclear weapons.

As I slowly learned more of Blatner’s history, I eventually discovered why he was teaching at the end of his career at a place where most teachers begin their careers. He had had a penchant for teenaged girls. When he was younger, his verve and gift with words must have attracted many to him, for the rumor was that he had twice fled states to avoid statutory rape charges. I believe he was one of those men who fall in love with the same type of jejune, romantic girl over and over, girls that can be enraptured by his emotive volubility. He may genuinely have loved them, but no parent could have tolerated such infatuation of his or her daughter. Ultimately, Blatner was forced to flee or face criminal charges.

At the end of the school year, Okeechobee County—in a near-sighted paroxysm of parochialism, claiming corruption of the town’s youth—fired all the single teachers, including Blatner. Some of us married couples quit in protest against the educational massacre. Then the county tried to amend things by hiring back the single teachers, but my wife and I found jobs elsewhere and left as did most of the other married teachers. I had chipped out of a hazard.

Nonetheless, I weathered those setbacks, and remain thankful to the man who taught me to play golf and to learn steadiness of purpose. I played golf steadily on the weekends for another three years until golf courses began requiring guests to ride golf carts and ended my thinking walks in the sunshine.

Besides, I had won my first award: some of my eighth grade students had presented me with a medallion. Inside its box was written “Mr. J. C. Blanton, ‘68-’69. May God bless you in everything you do.” Beneath the quasi-art-deco emblem, the medallion stated simply “Quality Service.” I felt as if I had landed a double-eagle.

End of "Golfing Through Life."

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Putkwyz, Ch.18, "Allies"

18


Allies


The first time that King Golman endeavored to go out of the fort, the guards stopped him, so he sat down by the gate and wept and cried, “Why are you so cruel to your children? I want only to smell flowers and feel grass under my feet!”

Filk was at the gate the next time, so when the king approached, Filk lifted his pike and said, “Pass, Sire,” In such a voice that the other guards lifted their pikes and let the king skip out into the meadows where he picked flowers and spent a day wading in a pond, stomping through mud, and talking to birds and frogs and fish—to the amusement of all the soldiers.

Kra and I saw him on our walk after lunch. Kra said, “There’s Golmon enjoying a day in the fields.” He pointed to the king, who was evidently speaking to a bird in a tree.

I said, “Should I go and see if he is all right?”

“No, don’t bother. If he wants our company, he will come to us. I am sure of it. My doctor checked him. Physically he’s in decent condition for a man his age. Only his mind has been affected by his sons’ betrayal.”

Golmon established a routine of going into the fields each day, except when it rained. On rainy days, the gate was locked. However, on sunny, or at least dry days, he could wander freely, even clambering in and out of the airplanes on the field. Sometimes he pretended to be piloting one to Huppof. The soldiers nicknamed him “Moon Pilot.” He also got into the habit of sleeping on a pillow of the flowers he had picked, in the shade of the dungeon during the warm afternoons. Everyone else left him alone, although as night fell a couple guards with the nurse would find him and escort him back to the fort.

Sleeping in the shade of the dungeon was a clever stroke because with his back turned to the meadow, he could see through the low window into Mawgri’s cell and they could talk in low whispers, assessing their situations and keeping each other informed of any plans. Meanwhile, I could look down from my bedroom window to make sure no one else happened upon the conversation.

The loose caftan was an aid to the escape plans. Over many days, Golmon was able to conceal beneath the thick kepoc wool a dagger, two rifles, four boxes of ammunition, four hand grenades, a crossbow, a quiver of arrows, an automatic pistol and a short sword. Kra’s loyal troops had brought such an excess of weapons and ammunition—enough for thousands of soldiers, not the hundreds he had—that the pilfered items were not missed. Golmon brought them in singly and stored them in the wardrobe closet, where—even if the cache of weapons were found—it would not necessarily implicate him or Malcolm.

Filk took it upon himself to visit his old king, knocking on the door shyly, bowing and asking for the king. Usually, the king would be out meandering, so Malcolm would talk to Filk, who always brought something from the kitchen: a pie, a decanter of wine, a loaf of tak bread.

One day, Malcolm invited him in to share a thigh of aubligado. Malcolm sliced off pieces of fowl and put them with leaves of wyrd between two slices of buttered bread. He handed this concoction to Filk. “Here, try it. It’s called a sandwich on Earth. Sit down.”

Filk sat, took a bite of his sandwich, chewed, swallowed and then ate the whole thing, burped and smiled and said, “[Why, that’s very good, your lordship.]”

“[It’s simple, but healthy fare.]”

“[I could make one and take it on guard duty. Makes good soldiering food.]”

I smiled and asked, “[Filk, tell me, how do you feel seeing your former king here?]”

He was a little uneasy, but he finally said, “[Well, it’s not right . . . he was a good king . . . he deserves a better end than this.]”

“[Would you like to see him returned home?]”

“[I would if it were possible.]”

“[What if I said it was.]”

“[How? I know Kra intends to keep him here until he dies.]”

“[Would you help him escape?]”

“[If there were a chance, but this a huge land mass, and we’re in the middle of it. Just riding to the sea would take ninety days through some rough country ruled by vicious people.]”

“[Is there anyone else who would help us?]”

“[The chef would. He’s from Sobimeer and is angry that Radimeer’s forces bombed and attacked his homeland.]”

“[Talk to him, see what can be done. However, don’t tell him I am part of the plan. Tell him that the two prisoners and you will take the king away and that he can come, too.]”

“[I will say it is my idea, but I’ll need a plan that he can believe in.]”

“[Tell him that you have arbezes ready to ride and weapons for everyone. See how willing he is.]”

I remained apprehensive because although my instincts told me Filk was on our side, I couldn’t be sure. However, I didn’t think that he was a good enough actor to pose as the sympathetic commoner who still respected his former king. My gut told me that Filk was sincere.

The next day, Filk knocked on my door again.

As soon as I had closed the door behind him, he said, “[Good news, your lordship, the chef is with us.]”

“[What’s his name?]”

“[Dukuf. He said to give him three days during which he will gather the right herbs from the fields, and that the evening before the escape, I should tell him, ‘Make my favorite tomorrow,’ and he will make a special meal for the whole garrison. And, he said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t eat that meal.’]”

“[Ah, that sounds good. What does Dukuf look like? I don’t remember seeing him.]

“[You’ve probably seen him, but he mostly stays in the kitchen. He loves to cook, but he’s not very talkative, but sometimes he comes out of the kitchen. He has orange-and-white scales and usually wears a long white apron over a blue suit . . . and he wears a blue cap.]”

“[Yes, I have seen him, but I didn’t know he was the head chef.]”

“[He’s not a big one for seeking notice.]”

From then on I did notice Dukuf because he began to go out of the fort and into the woods every day after breakfast. On those trips he carried a basket made of black fupil reeds. When he returned, the basket was full and a cloth covered the contents.

Dukuf was a tall, thin Putkur, who looked as if he rarely ate much of his own cooking. Filk claimed Dukuf thought of the food he cooked for others as his daily works of art, but for himself he preferred simpler fare—soups and stews.

Finally, one evening, after Golmon had come in from the fields and a feigned nap in the shadow of the keep, he told me, “Tomorrow is the day. Mawgri says they are ready.”

Therefore, I went to where the guards ate, found Filk and by way of asking how the prisoners were, conveyed to him that the next day would be the attempted escape. As I left the room I heard him tell a server, “Tell Dukuf that tomorrow I want him to make my favorite.”

The day of the planned escape broke cold and overcast with a high wind blowing, so the tented troops had to work to batten down their supplies and secure stakes and lines. The arbezes inside the fort stomped and snorted, showing their unease. The ones outside tugged at their ropes and whinnied. The wings of the four-engine planes shook and wobbled in the gusts. It was not a day that a sane being would venture forth, but it was fine day for an escape because the wind and cold would add to deception and confusion.

That day, Dukuf served steaming bowls of his special stew, but I begged off lunch, saying I was not feeling well.

Golmon and I spent lunch waiting for the moment of escape. I made us sandwiches.

However, when the moment came it was unlike the sigh after a large meal. There was silence. The sound of Putkurs in conversation disappeared. Golmon and I gathered our clothing and our store of weapons from the wardrobe closet. We each put on one of the caftans to cover our contraband and we walked carefully down the stairs. We could hear nothing. I stopped beside one door and listened. Coming from inside the room were snores and deep breathing. At each door, those sounds were all we heard.

At the bottom of the stairs, Dukuf with a bundle at his feet stood as if waiting for us. He said, “[Your majesty, your lordship, follow me.]”

I said, “[Wait.]” I gave him a caftan and one of the rifles.

He said, “[Better you should give me the crossbow. I haven’t learned to shoot a rifle yet.]”

We exchanged weapons.

When we passed the guards’ quarters, we looked in. They were all in deep sleep with smiles on their faces.

Dukuf said, “[They won’t wake for many hours.]”

When we neared the front door, we stopped and waited. Soon we heard footsteps coming up from the dungeon. Around the hall came Mawgri, Luvark and Filk—all dressed in the armor of guards and with swords, pikes and rifles. We gave each of them a caftan to fight off the cold air, and we opened the door and stepped into the fortress square.

I asked Dukuf, “[Did Emperor Kra eat lunch?]”

“[Only one bowl, but that is enough for an hour or two of slumber.]”

The guards in the towers were invisible, and the ones at the gate had sat and were sleeping with their heads against the wall. We six conspirators walked without impediments out of the fort. We stopped at the line of arbezes in the field, chose the mounts we wanted, carefully saddled them, strapped our baggage to the saddles, mounted and rode north toward a town that Filk said would be fairly wide open and where we would be just more of many strangers passing through.

A few scouts who had missed lunch rode in from the forest as we were leaving. We waved as if we were their replacements heading out.

We rode without stopping for an hour, which brought us to a rise in the land, from which we could look back at the fort. We halted there, dismounted, and took a break and let the arbezes drink.

I asked Dukuf, “[What did you put in the food?]”

He smiled and said, “[Two substances: One is called the ‘dream fungus,’ which grows around the roots of trees; it tastes a bit like Miki nuts, but is a mild hallucinogenic with calm-inducing effects. The other is the bud of the wild mordus, which some call the ‘death flower’; it is a relative of the wyrd, but its sap is a powerful narcotic that renders a feeling of well-being and induces sleep. The garrison will sleep for a long time, and when it wakes, the sense of calm and well-being will have left, but the hallucinations will continue for a while. And, of course, to help everything along I poured in a good dose of slavva, which not only heightens taste and hunger, but is a catalyst for other drugs—it grabs them and slings them forward.]”

That was the longest speech he had ever spoken.

With the wind whipping our clothes around us, we stood in the cold air on the ridge and were surprised by an amazing sight.

Suddenly, from over the fort, from inside the roil of low-hanging clouds came streaks of light that smashed into the fort, pulverizing the walls and collapsing the towers and the keep and setting on fire the barracks and workshops. The beams of light came also down on the fields, exploding the airplanes, igniting the arsenal, so it erupted into a huge yellow flaming ball that boiled up to the clouds. The sleeping garrison would never know what had rolled over them as they lay in their tents and in the fort.

Filk exclaimed, “[Great Zacon! What is that?]” Neither he nor Dukuf were familiar with spaceflight machines since they had spent the last twenty years wandering the barbaric world of Myunk. They had known of airplanes and mechanization, but were new to an even greater technology.

Mawgri said, “[Have no fear. Those are my ships. And one should be coming here.]”

Within seconds, a huge silver oblong ship descended from the clouds and hovered just meters from us on the ridge and a hatch opened and a ladder descended to receive us. We unsaddled our arbezes and slapped them to freedom and shouted “Haw! Haw!” to encourage their flight. Mawgri continued, “[Filk and Dukuf, come with us into the ship.]”

The two soldiers hesitated, astonished by the technology for which they had not been prepared. Their eyes widened and their mouths gaped.

King Golmon stepped to them, looked into their eyes and said, “Men, you have served me well. I owe you my life. Return with me to Polimeer where you will be honored and rewarded. You will be home again and you will be heroes there.” He licked both of them to show they were his friends, perhaps even his equals. They licked him back impulsively because they were so happy to see that his dementia had been an act. And so they came, stepping into the new universe to which they would have to adjust.

On board, every one of us was given comfortable quarters and treated royally.

Mawgri and Luvark disappeared for a long time, first cleaning themselves, then eating a solid, savory dinner, and finally sleeping in soft beds—all for the first time in a long while.

Since I had had a much easier time, I spent the afternoon in my quarters fitting my new books into my growing library and completing my journal of “Nowhere Land.”

End of Chapter 18
 
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