Now We Wait II
Horil was furious. So much so that she quivered in silence for a few moments before letting the pressure release. “If you’ve forgotten the count.” She bit into each word, resisting the urge to bite directly into Farrin. “After all the calculation, after chucking every unnecessary piece of weight. If you don’t remember how many times we’ve tumbled, I may just have to kill you and carry on alone.”
Farrin let her vent. He needed her focussed, and anger was the most efficient method. “No, wait, I’ve got it,” he said, balancing her emotional state once more, “Number five was when my shoulder went. There was one before this, and now this one. We shall call number seven, the belt of gaseous form!”
Horil remained silent, allowing her fool of a partner to prattle on as was his need. There were times she was certain that he bore a curse. No one talked as much as Farrin did without some nefarious business at its roots.
“Why would you ever take just one Jahnsenn Rod, they asked,” he said, mocking some long forgotten neophytes, “You need at least two to make a ladder, and a challenging one at that. Whatever will you do with just one?”
Closing her eyes in prayer, Horil played out the sweet release of just letting go. No more fatigue, no more Farrin stink, and no more gods forsaken chatter. Just the whistle of the wind to usher her into the Ancestor Halls.
“Ha, ha! This is what I’ll do with one, cretins!” he shouted, “I swear, Horil, we’ll survive this. We will. If for no other reason than to wave this rod under the noses of…what were their names again?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, praying for the thousandth time for divine intervention.
The shrieking pair careened from the cloud cover seven drops later. The miniature mosaic of landscape below drew their equal attention after the abrupt stop.
“We may need to recalculate,” Horil whispered.