Our hot air balloons rise up like thistle down, gliding, dipping, gently twirling, flowing in harmony with every whim of the air. We are all hanging over the sides of our baskets looking down at the land beneath us as it changes from meadows and forests and hills to colorful contoured patterns.
The higher we go, the more the ground shapes blur, the more we leave one reality behind and enter this realm of air with its ethereal creatures and capricious ways. Because we have a certain goal in mind, we will not be exploring the many portals of this sky world. We would never get on to Sir Max's Aquaruim for all the interesting and lovely places we would find in its hidden realms.
Our first goal is the Macaronic Gate, a sky portal where we flow through the Universal Thought Stream. This stream of thoughts branches into two great currents, the River of Dreams and the Thrall of Words. We hope to avoid these currents for both have traps of unending peril. We long ago sent messages into the wind, and to Sir Max, asking for helpers and guides on the journey. The first one, a Singer who will open the gate, is to arrive this very night to help us make safe passage.
The dark moves in upon us like a shadow, dimming the stars and eclipsing the moon. I can feel it breathing against my cheeks and the silence so complete I can hear the whispers and sighs from the elvin children in the other balloons. The sounds are so eerily close that my skin tingles with goosey bumps and I'm peering about feeling for something I can't exactly see. Something that has shifted the sky somewhat, as if a piece of darkness has broken off and is making a presence on its own, slowly filling up with liquid moonlight and gathering stars into it.
Harkin, feeling the presence too, gives a burner an extra tweak that shoots off a blast of fire lighting the balloon up like a flying light bulb. We all see the dark glittering shape flit away in surprise and we tumble over each other trying to get a better view. Diafonys is twittering away in the Elvin and some human tongue, which is curious, as I thought if anyone was going to succumb to macaronic nonsense at the gate it was going to be our bard, Harkin.
"Did you see her Phee?" yelps Harkin in excitement. "She's Awesome a-and I think I'm in love!" Well, that is an improvement over a tree trunk and the like, although I doubt Harkin will have any better luck having a relationship with this giant sparky than a boulder.
"Yes, Harkin I see her. I hope she is the Singer I sent for to help us get through the Macaronic Gate." Awesome, so named by Harkin, has drifted toward us again with a strange expression on its-er, her face. One, I interpret to mean we're in for just a wee bit of retribution for startling her so with the fire blast.
"Harkin, whatever you do, don't say anything. No waxing poetic, no singing, no heart thumping drama, do you understand me, lad?" He nodded yes and he nodded no, and then he just stared at Awesome, who was slowly leaning in toward us with a pair of brilliant sapphire eyes, each as big as my head. Then, wouldn't you know, Wart began to rumble, not a purr mind you, but the rumble deep and fierce like just before he lets out one of those ear splitting yeowls. Well, he is hiding just behind Harkin so Awesome turns toward Harkin thinking it's him and huffs.
The next thing we know, Harkin is hanging by his suspenders off the tip of a small blue star. Wart has me hooked by his claws, in my second best sweater, and Diafonys is hanging over the edge of the basket by her knees. I thought of using my wand but was quite certain I couldn't enchant the Awesome Creature's big toe, much less transport Harkin back across some unknown distance of space into the basket.
There was naught to do but settle in and wait for her to make the next move. A wee bit of an introduction from her would have been nice, but then these great Beings don't always have the social graces down you know, especially toward us ordinary magical folk.
Awesome just silently corraled our balloons over toward Harkin who I expected to find in a truly electrifying lament. Instead he is looking kind of scary, smiling like a banshee and all, it's probably the derangement from hanging off a star.
"Harkin, lad, are you there, or am I looking at your shade?" I ask. His head turned with fascinating slowness, like he is spellbound. Spellbound? Now that is interesting and I wonder if there is some kind of stupifying trance connected to being starbound as well.
His eyes finally focused on me and I see the rapture, "Ah, my dear Phee, this is by far the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me." Oh, I could just imagine and rolled my eyes. "Phee, I see it! Stella brought me here so I could see the gate, the Great Macaronic Gate, it's just over there".
Stella? So, Awsome has a real name? How does he know? Harkin is trying to point at the gate and I get the gist of it and look just before he twirls around on his suspender. Our balloons hover in front of a great mass of what might be clouds but looking all tangled and writhing about.
When he has righted himself again Harkin holds out his hands and cries, "Isn't it wonderful?"
"But, Harkin", I yell, "What is it?"
"I think it's a tangle of Macaronic Verse!" he yelled back. "Then again, it could just be pasta, what do you think?"
Before I could wonder on that, Stella was moving us again, gently picking Harkin up by his suspenders and placing him back in the ballon basket. He objected somewhat to being returned but finally settled as our balloons moved toward the Gate. The balloons responded to Stella's very presence, but as we drew near to the Gate she began to sing and then I knew why she was so careful with mere speaking.
Her voice was a sound so vast it must have filled the universe. We all clapped our hands over our ears for the vibrations it set off in our heads. The mass of thick sticky looking forms before us obeyed her song by rising up and ordering themselves into a huge parabolic-like archway, possibly made of pasta, it was hard to tell.
We were all trembling in such pleasurable awe that thanking the Singer seemed almost too silly a courtesy for so great a deed. While I searched frantically for the appropriate elvin words to say to her, Harken saved me the trouble,
"Oh great and glorious one," he waxed,
"I shall write a sonnet for you that will challenge the words of the Ancients themselves!"
Before he could say one more word, I slapped my hand over his mouth, "Have a care what you say, Lad, you just happen to be in the Ancients territory now and she is one of them!"
He just gave me an altogether impish grin and then threw several flambouyant air kisses to Stella, the Awesome Singer of the Gate of Macaronicus. She blinked those huge sapphire eyes and almost smiled, then she disappeared, a silken waft of shimmering light in the dark of night.
Other beings are making the passage with us although we have no real contact with them. As we flow on in the space under the curved archway we think we hear singing in the distance but it's never close enough to disentangle from the jumble of languages, the murmuring of a million voices, all held suspended while we make safe passage.
Below us flows the Great Universal Thought Stream, which is a clamor of thoughts, every thought ever thought, all recorded here and flowing along on its own great current. Soon enough the Universal Thought Stream will begin to branch into the River of Dreams and the Thrall of Words. I'm feeling the willies from being so close and glad we have some distant relatives coming to help us before we are pulled into one or the other of these great air streams.
This will be a Welkin Elf, related to us, but their being is of the air and ours of the earth so we don't do much socializing. In times past, humans would have called the Welkins gods and this one, who has appeared at just the right moment, has always put me in mind of Boreas, the North Wind. His name is Bannard and he has the knowledge from ancient times to part the great streams and hold back those elemental creatures that hunger after its living knowledge.
Sir Max had sent word to Bannard to give us safe passage between the streams and move us into the wind currents that will take us closest to our drop site. Bannard and I share a moment of the whispered way, for I have known his family and spent time with them in the long ago past. Then he goes about his task with the ease of a Master, opening the way for our tiny balloons to pass. It wasn't so long ago our balloons seemed gigantic, but now they are hardly a leaf in the wind.
As we flow away from him, our thanks impress the sensitve air with images that trail behind our balloons like swarms of butterflies. I do believe he smiled then, although I noticed there was a rather vicious little creature attached to his foot by its needle sharp teeth, so it may have been a grimace.
The long night is giving way now to the first light of dawn. The sky has colored somewhat and I am groping about looking for my tea things which are in the basket under Diafonys who is curled up snoring with Wart.
Madeleine of the moon, is still up in the sky and I beg from her just a wee drop of the moon milk for my tea before she disappears over the horizon. Always generous, when I raise my tea cup, she tips her crescent shape just a tad and sends an opalescent swirl of the milky liquid into my cup, over my cup, down my arm and pooling onto the floor of the basket. Ah well, Wart will like it.
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The first daughter of the morning, has quietly slipped over the horizon. She is wearing a wide golden hat and riding on the back of a huge brown bear. Waves of violet and lavender wash through the sky from their presence gently exciting the dark with first light. She turns her head toward us and golds and corals flash from her hat and gild the balloons and our faces. Our passage is of only mild interest to her, which considering our small size is something of a relief. Our balloons are but wee fragile colored air balls in her realm and we flow on past, silently, too full of awe to utter a sound.
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