Ukulele (Part One)

A troubled knife cut through his restless dreaming, and Gogo awoke,
at once dimly aware of the pain in his leg. Not sure how he should
respond to the evident danger, he made like a tree and stood very
still. His eyes strayed furtively to his leg. His leg was on
fire.
Now, how best to deal with this? Gogo had once caught a glimpse of a
fiery, energetic dance by a performer in the town of Narshe. Dredging
up every detail from his memory of event, he started dancing. Faster
and faster he went, pirouetting and spiraling, whirling his arms and
cartwheeling his legs until the fire turned to smoke and Gogo ceased.
Groggily, he inspected his leg. The fringe of his gown was badly singed
and the bare flesh beneath was rapidly darkening amid searing pain.
Behind him his campfire crackled, seemingly laughing at him. Gogo
crackled back at it. It spat. Gogo pulled down the cloth covering his
mouth and spat back, causing the fire to hiss. Gogo hissed in return,
and something suddenly occurred to him. He sauntered like a cat over to
where he had been sleeping and saw the charred splinters scattered on
the ground.
Set alight by his own campfire! Gogo shook his head in the manner of a
disappointed father and began to collect his things together. The fire
had been right to awaken him. Dawn had come and it was time to continue
his travels, onward towards that distant objective! What Gogo wanted,
he did not know, for he had long ago realised that every strand of his
life was composed of the long shed threads of others. This occurred to
him once more as he danced over the withering remains of the fire that
had kept him warm that night, pounding it to ash and charcoal beneath
his pointed boots. Indeed, he hastened to add (for no one's benefit but
his own,) did not the same thought occur to him each and every
morning?
Yesterday's travels had brought him no profit, and little experience. A
fiercely territorial bird, larger than Gogo himself, had unwittingly
taught him how to screech and how to stoop, but with no sickle-like
talons or crescent wings of his own Gogo felt he had little use for
these skills. Furthermore, one of his pouches had been torn during the
ensuing tussle, and he had been forced to transfer a quantity of money,
a heavy pocket watch and an oddly shaped cooking utensil to the left
side of his body. As such, he felt disturbingly unbalanced.
In addition, the meat he had been able to catch and cook the night
before had done little to satisfy his stomach, so it was fortunate
indeed that after a mere hour of travelling, Gogo reached the brow of a
hill and found himself staring out upon a bustling coastal town. He sat
down at once to admire the view and allow relief to engulf him. Beyond
the sandstone slopes, warmly hued clusters of small buildings, and
long, dark jetties seagulls rained upon a sleeping silver sea, the
great doorway behind which lands anew lay fresh for his exploration. A
swelling wave of conversation rose from the seething trenches of the
town and broke gently over his masked ears, so that he felt drawn into
that human tide. The voices, inseparable from one another, told him it
was where he belonged. In thought Gogo refused them, knowing there was
nowhere he could truly belong until he had found the place where his
soul hid, but his body was obedient. It coaxed Gogo down the hill and
led him to the main road that ran into the town. There he was set upon
by a maiden of considerable natural beauty.
"Oh, my! And who are you supposed to be?" she said, stopping beside him
and almost dropping the canvas bags she carried in her arms.
Gogo was immediately attracted to her, but so was he immediately
attracted to the vast majority of women he met. They were curious like
that, in his experience utterly irrational but not requiring of
rationality to convince. He had learnt to conceal his interest, lest
they try to use it to their advantage, and he did so here.
"Well? Can't you speak?" the woman persisted. "I asked you who you
were."
"Who am I?" Gogo repeated.
"Yes, who are you? Goodness, you're slow-witted."
"Who am I?" said Gogo again, and considered the problem for a moment
before replying. "I am Gogo."
"Gogo? What an extraordinarily silly name! What's your business in
Nikeah?"
Nikeah! So after all these years, he'd found his way back to the town
where he'd been separated from his family. They had arrived after dusk
and left before dawn, so Gogo had never seen the town in daylight
before, and only now appreciated its simple beauty.
"Are you listening to me?" asked the woman. "I said what's your
business in Nikeah?"
So as not to give away any further discrepancies in his voice, Gogo
simply pointed at the shining silver sea.
"You want to hire a boat?"
Gogo looked blank.
"Well for goodness' sake, open your mouth and tell me! Do you want to
hire a boat or not?"
"I don't know," Gogo replied.
She shook her head.
"You're impossible! How do you expect me to help you if you don't tell
me what you want?"
"I don't expect you to help me," said Gogo.
"Well, really! What's a girl to do with you? And what on earth is all
this?"
She dropped her bags and began rifling through Gogo's robes with
unbridled curiosity, uncovering his various cooking instruments,
weapons, pouches of money and personal possessions. Gogo wondered
briefly whether he should push her away, as is done with assailants,
have her arrested, as is done with riflers of people's possessions, or
unleash a dirk on her, as is done with highwaymen, but so indecisive
was he, and so surprised by her lack of respect for his privacy, that
he did nothing.
"This is ridiculous! What in heaven's name do you need this for? And
what kind of utensil is this? I've never seen it before? Ouch! That's
far too dangerous to carry around on your person! What are you? A
salesman? Don't you have a cart or something?"
She ceased her intrusiveness for only a moment or two, sweeping her
hair back behind her ears and probing Gogo's face with her eyes. She
seemed to notice his headdress for the first time, and recoiled
somewhat.
"What need have you to wear such a strange mask? Are you an outlaw? Or
a monster perhaps?"
Gogo found himself becoming impatient with her.
"I am not a salesman, not an outlaw and certainly not a monster, young
lady," he said, adopting the patronising tone of a father to his
daughter.
"So you do talk when you want to! Well then, if you aren't a salesman,
or an outlaw, or a monster, you won't last a minute in Nikeah before
you've been stripped of everything you own," she advised.
"Light-fingered thieves everywhere."
"I know how to deal with such people," Gogo said, in the vain of an
proud swashbuckler.
"Sure you're not just a little over-confident?"
The woman was becoming irritable. She obviously wanted to help.
"Well, now. Perhaps I am at that," Gogo reverted to the voice of the
flighty gigolo.
"I'm glad you admit it." She sighed. "Look, since you're obviously so
incapable of handling yourself, I guess I'll have to help you out. My
brother owns a house near the quay. I suppose I could talk him into
letting you stay for a few nights, for payment of course."
"Dear me, are there no inns?" asked Gogo, still a gigolo.
"Of course there are. Our town isn't that hard up, you know! It's just
that they're not as nice as my brother's house. And besides, the
innkeepers are cutthroats who'll murder you in the middle of
the&;#8230;look, are you going to take me up on my kind offer or
not?"
"Ah, well met!" gigolo Gogo said. "I think I will at that,
m'dear."
"Very well then. Follow me. And stick close behind; I don't want to
have to go looking for you if you get lost."
Gogo did as he was told. The woman picked up her bags and they resumed
their journey into the depths of Nikeah without another word. Despite
what she'd said, he almost lost sight of her at two points during their
traversing the breadth of the town, due largely to her incredibly rapid
walking pace and the sudden thrusts and surges of the crowd that
enclosed them both. All the time, Gogo kept himself primed and ready
for the uninvited interventions of those light-fingered thieves she had
warned him about, but none came. He began to suspect her of
exaggeration.
"We're here," she said at last, stopping in front of a small
sand-coloured building at the end of a street. "Now where've you got
to? Oh, there you are. Didn't I say to stick close behind? You're so
terribly useless!"
She rapped sharply on the door and awaited an answer. When none
immediately came, she began to shout at it.
"Well this is fine, this is! I go out of my way to get you permission
to take your precious ship and that gaggle of lazy slobs you call your
crew out on the ocean on some fanciful little cruise, and when I get
back, tired, hungry and socially deprived, you don't even have the
decency to let me in! I tell you, Gilbert, you are the most selfish,
idiot waste of space of a brother I ever&;#8230;"
The door was opened by a bearded crustacean of a man, far taller than
his small sister and somewhat less pretty.
"Well, it's about time!"
Gilbert feinted out of the way as she barged through the door and
dropped the bags she carried at his feet. Gogo followed
cautiously.
"What's all this, woman?" asked Gilbert, indicating the bags. "And why
the devil have you brought this fat clownfish with you?"
He waved a pipe at Gogo.
"Those bags contain my shopping, which I have lugged all the way back
from Tzen, I'll have you know," replied his sister. "Be a dear and
unpack them for me. As for him, he's a friend. He's not fat, he just
has a lot of clothing, and he's staying here for a few
nights&;#8230;"
"The hell he is!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Gilbert. Stop being so melodramatic. He stays
here and that's final. For a payment, of course," she added,
redirecting her glare at Gogo.
"Of course, my dear," Gogo assured her.
"Oh, I see!" said Gilbert. "Some kind of greasy yuppy, are ye? Well
you're not conducting any of your filthy business from here, let me
tell you!"
Gogo decided it was high time to change demeanour.
"I'm just a poor street entertainer," he said, adopting the guise of a
beggar.
"You don't look very poor to me."
Gogo indicated his clothing.
"My only wealth, sir."
"That and the bags of money you keep under there," the woman reminded
him.
Gogo frowned the way the disgruntled politicians had taught him to, and
attempted to divert the conversation away from his own state of
affairs.
"Am I to understand that you have been all the way to Tzen and back for
a few bags of shopping?" he asked.
"Do I look like a complete idiot, you ninny?" she answered. "I went to
Vector to get the Emperor's personal permission for my dimwit brother
to go on a non-trade-related ocean voyage. I stopped off at Tzen on the
way back."
"I see. And tell me, did you walk all the way?"
"Well no one else was going to do the walking for me, were they?"
"But over mountains!"
"Yes, and someone should do something about those mountain pathways.
They're very wearing on a girl's feet. Gilbert! How can you just stand
there? I've brought you back a signed piece of documentation just like
I promised, haven't I?"
She withdrew said parchment from the confines of her small bosom and
held it for her brother.
"For goodness' sake, take it!"
He did so, betraying no signs of gratitude.
"I hope you're happy with it. Now I'm going to bed, if that's fine and
dandy with both of you. Thank you!"
She huffed irritably, and made for a small wooden staircase in one
corner of the room. When her footsteps had subsided into the occasional
dull groan from the upper echelons of the house, Gilbert turned to Gogo
and benefited him with a hostile jerk of his pipe.
"If she says you're staying for a few nights, I ain't got the heart to
argue with her," he said through clenched teeth. "But a few nights is a
few nights and here it's still day, so ye can clear off."
Gogo decided it was time to be diplomatic.
"All in good time, all in good time, my good man," he said cheerily.
"But first, might you tell me where you plan to head on this voyage of
yours? Only I've been wishing to depart from these shores for a
considerable amount of time in search of lands anew."
Gilbert seemed only too glad to furnish Gogo with further
information.
"Tis a voyage of discovery!" he said, seating himself on a creaking
wooden chair. "To find the fabled lost continent that is retold in myth
and legend. See, I believe such a thing does exist and that it is
extremely foolhardy and negligent of our peoples to presume they know
it doesn't just because they have not yet encountered it in their
pussyfooted travelling of the high seas. When provisions are made, me
and my crew of sturdy seamen and brave explorers will set out to find
it, and we'll be the stuff of heroes and legends ourselves!"
His brow darkened.
"But you ain't coming. So go on, clear out of here."
Gogo did as he was asked without further questions.

This woman - he did not even know her name yet - was a sturdy piece of
forgery indeed, Gogo mused. Did she say that the Emperor himself had
signed that document? What great power she must have if she can
convince even Emperor Gestahl to abide by her wishes!
Perhaps&;#8230;perhaps, Gogo wondered, amid checking over the
contents of his robes to make sure no thieves had been light-fingered
enough to surpass his trained senses, perhaps she was a user
of&;#8230;magic. If so, she must be his enemy. He had heard the
tales of the Magi war told breathlessly to frightened children over the
lapping flames of a campfire. He had even been one of those frightened
children once. Maybe a part of him was still. He had sensed the fear
creeping like swell across people's spirits when they spoke of magic,
or of the Empire's Magitek knights. He knew that if it were within him
to hate, and hate passionately, magic and its users were where this
hate was to be directed.
The quay and waterfront were not far away from Gilbert's house. Lined
before the sea in rank, like an army awaiting invasion, were various
caf?s and inns, each flying their own placards in the salty air. Gogo
ploughed his way through market stalls and fishermen towards the
nearest one.
Still, he had no real reason to suspect the woman of being a magic
user. Only assumption, and assumption often carried with it hidden
dangers. For now, he would assume that she was simply pushy, and devote
his time instead to planning how he could buy a position on Gilbert's
ship. The lost continent sounded a likely place for a lost soul like
his to reside&;#8230;

"Aye, she'll fall off alright, and my sympathy's with the
sharks!"
Deep laughter broke out like rough, tumbling thunder. Gogo felt obliged
to join in, then downed his ale the way the other sailors did.
"There'll be a new breed of sea monster riding the waves tomorrow,
boys!" he said, and they all laughed again.
Tomorrow, Gogo had learnt, was when Captain Gilbert Trout's crew
planned to set out for the lost continent, a crew consisting of many
regulars and a few extra additions selected by Trout himself. Confined
to Nikeah for the last week, they now determined to spend the whole of
the preceding day and night drinking in 'The Sullen Flounder.' Why?
Because the captain's permanently irate and very beautiful if
small-chested sister, Ukulele, had bullied her way on board, and none
of the sailors were prepared to face her sober if it were possible to
avoid such an encounter. It surprised Gogo that she was coming with
them after the resent with which she had spoken of her brother's
voyage, but he contained that surprise behind his headdress. He was
also shocked to hear that she was nothing other than a lady of the
night, a prostitute, and that her illicit activities fuelled her
frequent excursions, via land, to other towns across the continents,
while the finances for the voyage had come from her brother's smuggling
of Imperial traitors and vagabonds from Nikeah to South Figaro. This
shock was also kept largely behind his headdress, though some of it
strayed to his eyebrows.
At the same time as finding all this out, he had infiltrated the crew
of 'The Flying Carp,' Captain Trout's seafaring vessel. There seemed to
be a fish theme going on in Nikeah, Gogo decided, as he chatted and
drank the day away with the washed up sailors.
"Shay, you muhst've met her then," said one particularly bloated seaman
with a foghorn voice.
"On the road into Nikeah," Gogo replied. "There was I, a-minding me own
business, when along comes this woman, small and strong, quite a lusty
sight I must say&;#8230;" (this drew more laughter,) "and she hauls
me off to her brother's house, says she's going to shack me up there
for the night!"
Goading cheers ensued, amid them shouts of, "Hope she gives you a
discount!" But the bloated seaman with the foghorn voice didn't join
in. He looked faintly puzzled, as if contemplating a great equation,
and mouthed something silently. When the cheers had died down, he said
to Gogo: "Sho&;#8230;you ain't actually part of the crew
then?"
Gogo decided it was time to begin weaving deceit. He had avoided it
thus far in fear of being unmasked, but found now that he cared for
nothing greater than his getting aboard 'The Flying Carp' and
travelling with Gilbert, Ukulele and the rest of them.
"I'm still waiting for the right time to err&;#8230;offer my
services, so t'speak," he said. "I'm a very experienced sailor, let me
tell you. I can do any job that's left over, any job at all. You name
it."
He'd never been to sea before in his life.
"Course, I wouldn't want to take any of your jobs, not by any means.
Just if there's anything left for me to do, I'll do it, is what I'm
saying."
They gazed at him in drunken admiration.
"You mean you actually want to get on thish boat?" asked one of
them.
"Well," Gogo tried to explain, "I want to go find this lost continent
the Cap'n keeps talking about. I'm all for it. Aren't any of
you?"
They exchanged amused glances, then collapsed into hysterics. Gogo
laughed along with them, though felt it wasn't really the appropriate
course of action.
"We're only going becosh we're under contract," said foghorn-voice, his
eyes tearful with mirth. "No one but Captain Trout actually believesh
thish losht continent actually exishts."
"Why do you think we're all in here drinking?" asked another.
"I thought it wash what hearty shailors did all day," Gogo
replied.
And again, they laughed.
"We're trying to conshole ourshelves," one sailor explained to Gogo,
"becosh we're about to shpend monthsh at shea in shearch of a playsh
that none of ush really believesh in, living on ranshid meat and
shitrus fruitsh, drinking our own pish and having to put up with the
banshee wailing of the captain'sh shishter!"
"Monthsh, you shay?" queried Gogo. "I never realished!"
The sailor chuckled.
"What do you expect? You've never shailed with Captain Trout at the
helm before."
Thus assured, Gogo decided it best to await the next ship sailing from
Nikeah, rather than risk his sanity aboard 'The Flying Carp.'
"Excuse me," he said. "I'm just going to climb out of this
window."
And none of them raised an eyebrow as he did so.