Though originally as carnivorous by nature as any inhabitant of the Rainy Basin, the family of dromaeosaurs, to which Tarqua’s kind belonged, had long ago renounced ignorance to become respected members of Dinotopian civilization. Will personally knew several, including Enit, the head librarian of Waterfall City. Until now, he’d never thought of their teeth and claws as offensive weapons. All the dromaeosaurs and deinonychuses he knew tended to be bookworms.
“Here be a fine opportunity,” Blackstrap was saying, “to add to our private zoological reserve.” He addressed his crew. “What say you, lads? If our little devil will bring ten thousand pounds, what d’you think a talking one would be worth?” Enlightenment having visited the first mate, he was suddenly at the captain’s side, whispering urgently. “Brognar, don’t you see the import of this? It means that the boy’s been telling the truth all along! These creatures are intelligent. They have created some kind of unique civilization here.”
“Get hold of yourself, Mr. Smiggens.” Blackstrap was not so easily convinced. “One talking dinosaur does not a civilization make.” His grin returned. “Besides, when did it ever
bother you to have intelligent captives aboard? Have you forgotten the blackbirding we did in New Guinea and the Fijis?”
Dismissing the first mate by looking past him, the captain raised his voice. “This here parrot’s worth twenty thousand pounds at the minimum, men! More than its weight in gold, and it conveys itself. We’ve rope enough still to add it to our collection.”
“I dunno, Captain.” Samuel eyed the silent Deinonychus uneasily. “It’s got a lot of claw.”
“What are you afraid of?” Blackstrap glared at his crew. “Why, ’tis no bigger than the smallest among you, an eagle without wings. Spread out on all sides now, and we’ll take it easy.”
Unlimbering their nets and remaining ropes, a dozen or so of the pirates encircled the nest-bed and its contemplative occupant. Making no effort to flee, Tarqua quietly watched the humans’ approach. Will held his breath, and even Prettykill looked on intently.
Taking the first step, Suarez flung a loop of net toward the Deinonychus’s head. At the last possible instant Tarqua leaped straight up into the air and turned a perfect somersault. The huge sicklelike claw on his second toe flicked out, there was a small snicking sound, and he landed exactly where he’d been standing. Only a slight ruffling of his robe indicated that he’d moved at all.
Neatly severed in three places, the half-inch-thick section of hemp netting dropped harmlessly to the smooth golden floor.
Several of the other pirates made similar attempts. In each instance the result was the same: Tarqua remained unrestrained while a number of neatly sliced ropes and nets piled up on the ground. The men looked to their captain for instructions.
Blackstrap’s tone hinted at admiration rather than displeasure. “Very impressive, aye. For one who says he just sits around contemplating, you’re damnably fast, little dinosaur. I’d say in a tight situation you could meditate right well with your fists as well as your feet.”
Tarqua returned the captain’s stare unblinkingly. “An ancient art learned, interestingly enough, from humans whose ancestors came to Dinotopia from places like Ch’na and
Kr’eah. I have modified it somewhat the better to suit my abilities. I find performing the kata both physically and mentally relaxing.”
“Relaxing, aye. I expect you could relax a man clean through from belly to backbone with those claws. Of course, being a philosopher and all, you’d never consider such a thing.”
Tarqua gazed evenly back at Blackstrap, and for just an instant Will thought he saw the pirate captain flinch. Civilized the Deinonychus might be, even highly civilized, but somewhere deep inside, the ancient memories of a time when he and his kind had hunted much larger dinosaurs in ferocious, unrelenting packs still lay dormant. Tarqua had flashed just a glimmer of that, and the impact on the captain had been profound.
Mkuse dangled the neatly sheared end of his rope. “That could just as easy have been my wrist, Captain.”
“I can see that.” Blackstrap was not happy. Teeth and talons notwithstanding, he’d just been stared down by an oversized chicken with the manner of a bishop. “I wonder if he’s fast enough to cut down a bullet.” Taking a step backward, he drew one of the two pistols slung at his belt. Noting the captain’s reaction, the rest of the men followed suit. Rifles were made ready. Tarqua looked on, silent and unmoving.
Will stiffened, not knowing how to react, what to do, or if indeed he should try to do anything. The tension in the chamber was palpable. Looking at the calm, composed, and supremely confident Deinonychus, he found himself wondering if maybe the dinosaur could deflect bullets.
The opportunity to find out did not arise. It was Smiggens who filled with reason a momentary void that could have turned tragic.
“Here, now, Captain,” he whispered to Blackstrap, “we have all the treasure we can carry and can come back for more at our leisure. With more men from the ship, and if needs be, more arms. Why risk an unnecessary confrontation with this creature now? So long as we leave its sanctum alone, it doesn’t seem to mind if we carry off everything else in sight. Is it really worth risking even one man just to bring it down?”
Blackstrap considered himself challenged, and his gut reaction was to meet a challenge head on. But that was one reason why Smiggens had been made first mate. Sometimes— not always, but sometimes—his calm reason could override the captain’s congenital fury. The fact that Blackstrap was willing to listen to the advice of others was a major reason he was still plying the high seas while so many of his peers were languishing in foreign jails ... or foreign graves.
Eyes never leaving the Deinonychus, he slowly holstered his pistol. “Right you are, Mr. Smiggens. Right you are. Put your rifles up, boys.” He forced a smile. “After all, this be a place of contemplation and tranquillity, don’t it? No reason to disturb things.” Will could hear the sighs of relief as the men relaxed. None of them had been looking forward to a fight with the chamber’s occupant.
Doing his best to turn the confrontation into a joke, Blackstrap bowed mockingly in the nest-bed’s direction. “Sorry we are to have disturbed you. We’ll be on our way now, we will, and no harm done.”
“But Captain—” Suarez began, mindful of Blackstrap’s comments on the Deinonychus’s potential worth.
The big man glared at him. “I said we’re leaving, Mr. Suarez. If that sack on your back be not full enough for you, I’m sure we can find more gold for you to carry.” The bewildered sailor subsided.
It was impossible to tell the Deinonychus’s exact age, but Will estimated that it was quite an elderly representative of its kind. Notwithstanding its advanced years, it hopped lithely from the center of the nest-bed onto the floor. The pirates tensed.
“There is one more thing.”
Blackstrap’s gaze narrowed dangerously. He was used to dictating conditions, not accepting them. “And what might that be, Mr. Philosopher?” Smiggens put a hand on the captain’s arm, but Blackstrap irritably shook him off.
“That once you have left this place you promise not to return. I have been listening to you for more than a day, and that has proven to be a day too long. Unsullied contemplation requires absolute peace.”
The broad grin that creased the captain’s face this time was genuine. “Why, I see no difficulty with that whatsoever, Mr.
Tarqua, sir. None whatsoever. The problem is, you see, that we be strangers hereabouts and are having some difficulty finding our way. To make sure we’re out of your hair—pardon me, your scales—as swiftly as possible, perhaps you can show us the quickest way from here to the Northern Plains?” He winked at Smiggens, and the first mate was left to admire the speed with which Blackstrap had turned the awkward encounter to their advantage.
Blackstrap’s promise, of course, was worth less than the palm leaves with which the dinosaurian ascetic had padded his bed.
“The Northern Plains?” Tarqua
looked puzzled, but raised a taloned hand and pointed northwestward. “Continue out the back of the temple. You will see three clefts in the valley wall. Take the left-hand one. In places it is so narrow a Deinonyckus or a man must turn sideways to squeeze through.” He eyed the massive human speculatively. “You will have to inhale deeply. But it does go all the way through the Backbone Mountains, and if you follow this course you will eventually emerge onto the Northern Plains, as you desire.
“Be quick about it, now, so that I may have back my peace and quiet.” With a hop he returned to his bed and settled himself into a comfortable position for meditating, crossing his hands in front of his chest, lowering his head, and closing his eyes.
“Absolutely, your dinosaurship, oh, most rapidly we will depart!” Blackstrap gestured at his crew. “Come on, then, now, men. You heard the Solemn One. Let’s hurry to be away from here.”
The seamen were careful to give the deceptively quiescent Deinonyckus a wide berth as they filed out the back way. Hemmed in by pirates, Will prepared to call out in the hope that so wise a dinosaur might question his captivity. Given the Deinonyckus’s arrantly antisocial nature it seemed unlikely Tarqua would protest Will’s condition, but Will felt calling attention to himself was worth a try.
He never had the chance. Divining his intent, Johanssen slapped a heavy, callused hand over the younger man’s mouth and grinned down at him.
“Belay that, boy. We wouldn’t want to disturb the old dragon’s meditatin’ any further, now, would we?” Will struggled in the pirate’s grasp but was unable to free himself. Assisted by shipmates, Johanssen hustled him out of the chamber. With her jaws tightly bound, Prettykill was afforded even less of an opportunity to comment on their involuntary condition.
Approximately an hour after the room had been vacated, Tarqua briefly raised his head, surveyed the empty chamber, and muttered something in his own tongue about “bad karma” before returning once more to a state of profound inner contemplation.
XXI
having seen or heard nothing of the pirates or their captives by the following morning, Will’s friends decided to take a chance and carefully made their way into the temple complex. While keeping a wary eye out for Will’s captors, they took time to marvel at the unfamiliar and wondrous structures that towered around them.
They had no difficulty tracking the thick, pungent smell of the pirates into the main temple, located at the rear of the complex. By herself Shremaza and her brood would have been unable to open the outer doors, but using his horn-covered snout and frill like a miniature earthmover, the compact Chaz easily forced the portal wide.
“What’s this?” At their cautious approach a testy Tarqua
looked up from the nest-bed. “More interruptions?” He sighed deeply. “If this keeps up I will never achieve Nirvana.” Chaz gaped at the Deinonycbus. “Who are you? What do you do here? Are you all alone in this place?”
“I am Tarqua, and I rejoice in solitude. More importantly, what do you do here? Heretofore, visitors to this valley were nonexistent. Suddenly I find myself compelled to deal with two groups in as many days.”
“Did you hear, Mother? Then they did pass this way!” Ari-mat commented excitedly.
“Pity.” Chaz’s attention focused on the open corridor that led off to their right. “I was so hoping there was no other way out. This will save them time and make it even more difficult for Hisaulk and a rescue team to intercept them.”
“You must leave.” The Deinonycbus sounded tired. “So that I may resume my contemplations.”
Gathering himself, Chaz trundled forward to confront the ascetic. “Now, you listen here, whoever you are. We’re trying to rescue a friend and we need your help. Was there a young human traveling with those who preceded us? One who was bound with ropes?”
“A young human and a young tyrannosaur,” Shremaza elaborated helpfully.
“I believe so.”
Chaz cocked his head sideways as he considered the Deinonycbus. “Didn’t you wonder about their condition?” “To tell you the truth, I did not pay much attention. I had all the others to watch closely, lest they cause me injury.”
“The boy and the tyrannosaur are prisoners, taken by these intruding humans.”
“Truly? Why did the boy not say anything?”
Chaz and Shremaza exchanged a look.
“I don’t know,” Chaz explained. “One way or another, his captors probably made it difficult or dangerous for him to do so.”
“I see.” The Deinonycbus pondered something unseen in the air before him. “What are these two to you?”
It was Keelk who stepped forward now, bowing to show her respect for the Deinonycbus'’s age and learning. “These strange humans took my whole family prisoner. It was the young human Will Denison who returned to help me free them. These humans do not think we are civilized and intend us no good. They intend Will no good. What they want with a juvenile tyrannosaur I cannot imagine.”
“The young tyrannosaur’s parents helped us,” Chaz elaborated, “and in return we promised to help free their daughter. We gave our word.”
The venerable Deinonychus nodded slowly. “The situation is more complex than I believed. I wish your young friend had said something to me. Now they are well away. To alter your friend’s unfortunate status will be difficult.” He sighed. “It does not matter. They are all doomed anyway.”
Shremaza blinked. “What are you talking about, wise one? What do you mean?”
Tarqua gestured skyward with his snout. “The storm-that-is-a-circle, which has been building for so long, will not miss Dinotopia but will pass directly over it. I have been reading the clouds and the stars. If you know your history you know where the worst of it will be felt.”
“The Northern Plains,” blurted Chaz. “Of course we know that. Everyone does.”
Sadly, the Deinonychus lowered his head. “Then you must know that if this storm is a bad one—and I believe it will be so—that out on the plains he has no chance, nor do those who restrain him against his will, nor would even a tyrannosaur.” With uncanny timing, thunder boomed somewhere high up in the unseen crags of the Backbone Mountains.
Its significance did not pass unnoticed. “It is starting already.”
“But we have to save Will!” Chaz had dispensed with any attempt at formality or etiquette. “We have to! Not only did he save all these struthie lives, but it’s the right thing to do. The necessary thing to do.”
“For you, perhaps.” The Deinonychus was unmoved. “I have removed myself from the world and its concerns. I think you will be safe from the storm if you remain here. We are far from the lowlands of the Northern Plains, and these temples have stood thus for many centuries.”
Chaz backed away. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t do that. I can’t stay here knowing that we’re safe while Will’s life is in danger.”
The struthie family crowded close around the indomitable Protoceratops. “Neither can we,” declared Shremaza. “The young human put his own life at risk to save us. We must do what we can to try and help him.”
“As you wish.” Tarqua shrugged. “I cannot stop you. I would not if I could. The cosmos offers each of us choices.” “That’s right,” agreed Chaz readily. “We’re stuck in it, and no matter how much some of us might try, we can’t pretend we’re not a part of it.”
The look that flashed in the ascetic’s eye momentarily reminded Chaz of the Deinonychus"s highly aggressive and carnivorous ancestors.
“Thus far I have done reasonably well at that, thank you. Each day I try to isolate myself a little further.”
Tryll stepped forward. “Please, sir, if you can help us at all, you must.”
The Deinonychus peered down at the smallest Struthio-mimus and his tone seemed to soften slightly. “There is nothing I can do, little runner. They have too much of a head start, and there are many of them, armed with what I believe to be exotic and dangerous weapons from the outside world. If they can subdue and
capture a young tyrannosaur, what makes you think you can unsettle them?”
“We don’t know that we can,” the stalwart Chaz replied, “but we’re honor-bound to try.”
“When my wanderings brought me to this place I vowed that I would remain here and do nothing save strive to achieve spiritual and mental perfection. Everything else I renounced. Now it seems that I am to be dragged, kicking and screaming as it were, back into a reality I believed I was finished with.” The Deinonychus took a deep, weary breath.
“Yet there is merit to be gained in goodness, and your cause and motivation are noble. I will try to help you.” At this the three young struthies hooted with joy, and Shremaza bowed low as a sign of thanks.
“There is one possible way we might overtake them,” Tarqua confided, “but it means breaking the only law I have made for myself.”
“There are laws higher than those we set for ourselves,” Chaz told him.
The Deinonyckus looked surprised. “Truly. For one so young, you have insight.”
“I just want to help my friend,” the Protoceratops replied. As Tarqua hopped off the platform, the young struthies retreated behind their mother, wary of teeth and claws they would not have given a second thought had they been in Sauropolis or Treetown. Despite his encouraging words, they did not entirely trust this solitary Deinonyckus, for he was surely the most eccentric dinosaur any of them had ever encountered.
Observing their reaction, the ascetic hastened to reassure them. “There’s no need to be afraid of me, little ones.” Robes trailing behind him, he set off at a relaxed lope for the rear corridor. “Come.”
Keelk followed uncertainly. “Where are we going?” “Going?” The Deinonyckus was as serious as ever. “Why, we are going toward the place I have devoted my life to reaching. We are going toward heaven.” He turned a corner and they had to lengthen their strides in order to keep up with him.
no quadruped is very fond of stairs. Chaz was no exception. The swerving stone stairway they had been climbing for what seemed like hours wound its way interminably up into the mountains.