The sun hung in the morning sky, infusing the remaining shadows with increasing heat. Barbarosa had finally caught the Mayor's elusive scent, and he and Bud were following the official’s footprints through the soft, dry sand of a slot canyon. Bud wiped a bead of set from his brow and sagged a little bit lower with each step. He hadn't gotten a chance to sleep last night, but he'd be passing out after this. Yeah, the robot was a catch and all, but worth losing sleep over, not if he couldn't sell him. Worth tracking down the Mayor over? Definitely not! But was it worth the trouble for Tyra to have a halfway decent bodyguard who wasn't balls deep in shadow magic or some other bullshit? As far as Bud was concerned, he'd chase the Mayor for another week just to get Tyra her damn war robot. Bud perked up at this new sense of purpose, but then his mind flitted back to Ellis ransacking his liquor cabinets and his heart sank. He trapsed forward, his vision blurring with sleep deprivation as he focused on the dark shape loping in front of him, small coral horns flashing in occasional splotches of morning light.
Barbarosa scuffed the sand with his forepaws and whined through his teeth. It wasn't that he was tired. He loved sleeping, but he really didn't need to that much. He loved smelling the night air, he loved how the stars glittered. He loved hearing the moths flit through the moonlight. He liked exchanging glances with the creatures of the night. That didn't bother him one bit, and neither did the early morning light. He'd stay out of the heat of the day if he could, but it wasn't so bad this time of year. What really bothered him was the Mayor's smell. Barbarosa seldom crossed paths with the Mayor, but he had a glamor about him that the not-dog couldn't stand. Even now, walking in the Mayor's footsteps, Barbarosa could smell the stickiness, the cloying mask hanging around the Mayor. Mud, creosote, pine sap, moss, wet fur, the Mayor's glamor clung to him like a cocktail of smells that definitely didn't belong together. Distinctive, easy to track, but Barbarosa got the sense that the Mayor could slither out of it like a snakeskin and walk away smelling like a bed of roses. Barbarosa didn't trust anyone who could change their smell like that."
"What's wrong Barb?" Bud muttered dully, stumbling along behind the not-dog.
Barbarossa whined again and put his ears down.
"C'mon, I know you don't like the Mayor, but is he that bad?"
Barbarosa lashed his tail and turned to give Bud a brief, reproachful look.
"OK, OK, you're right, I don't like the Mayor any more than you do."
Barbarosa tilted his head back, not to howl, but to mime a human swigging from a jug. He lashed his tail disapprovingly and shot another reproachful glance at Bud.
"Yes, Ellis, I know... he's gonna drink me out of house and home. He walks in there like he owns the place."
Another stare from Barbarosa, longer this time. A small swipe of the tail.
"OK, fine. He's a part owner, but still."
Barbarosa paused his stride long enough to raise his left paw and look back at Bud.
"Why?" Bud repeated Barbarosa's question, "Why what?"
Barbarosa made his unflattering gesture of Ellis swigging. Then he made a gesture of shuffling paper with his forepaws and finally licked by his green eye, his new sign for Byeju, the green-eyed mech.
Bud's addled brain took a minute to piece all the signs together. "Oh, why couldn't Ellis do this himself, put all Byeju's paperwork together? Why do we even need the Mayor?"
Barbarosa rolled his eyes as far as he could.
"I don't know."
Barbarosa glared at Bud and mimed sleeping, laying his head on a paw.
"I know, I'm missing sleep too. Do you think I'm happy about this?"
Barbarosa shook his head, curled around to sniff his butt, and then mimed sleeping again.
Bud recognized that the butt-sniffing was, in fact, Barbarosa's sign for the Mayor. He hoped the Mayor never had the opportunity to figure that out. But Bud's friend had a point, the Mayor wouldn't do anything. He'd just sleep or slouch or do whatever it is he did, Bud just shrugged back at the not-dog, and the two continued their thankless task in silence.
~~~~~{¤-¤}~~~~~ ~~~~~{^-^}~~~~~ ~~~~~{*-*}~~~~~
The soil underfoot grew damp as Barbarosa followed the Mayor's tracks, wet sand creeping in among piles of dry earth. Vines began trailing along the ground, and the trees stood a little taller, a little greener, nourished by a hidden source of water. Stone walls, striped with the layered pages of time, slowly rose from the desert floor, funneling the pair into a small slot canyon. The unsettling creosote and pine sap of the Mayor's glamor filled Barbarosa's nostrils. He grimaced. Sadly, Bud with his stunted human sense of smell wouldn't be sharing in Barbarosa's discomfort even if he bathed in the Mayor's stinking breath,
Bud noticed that the Mayor's tracks were getting fresher. He felt uncomfortable. The walls of the slot canyon hemmed him in, each sinuous line in the rock a closed chapter of geologic time. How long did it take each of those pages to turn? Bud imagined tracing his fingers through the silky mud of an ocean floor. He started, shaking the strange vision from his head. Was this Mayor's damn glamor? Bud hated mind games like this, but he was in for a penny, in for a pound. The Mayor was always a handful. Normally to talk with the Mayor, he buy some draught from Basil that would take the edge off the Mayor's presence. In his haste to run and track him down, Bud had forgotten. Now, as Barbarosa gagged on a bouquet of creosote pitch and pine tar, Bud's ears started to roar and his head started to buzz. This was going to be fun.
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The slot canyon narrowed, and water bubbled up from the ground forming still puddles. Minnows darted for cover as Barbarosa sloshed past. The Mayor's footprints grew fresher and his pervasive eau de cologne nagged at Barbarosa, making his eyes water. Bud was equally miserable as he shuffled between narrowing walls, his shoulders brushing glinting diatomaceous dust off the damp stone. Bud's feet sloshed in the gathering puddles, and his toes sank into the cool mud. The buzzing in his head grew louder as though a thousand mosquitos were tag-teaming his nervous system. The Mayor was the worst! He really didn't have to be like this did he? Bud shook his head to try and clear the fuzziness, but to no avail. Barbarosa slinked forward fighting the urge to plug his nose with mud. Nose-blindness was just too much of a handicap, and Barbarosa trusted his Mayor only as far as he could throw him. Being a quadruped without opposable thumbs, he couldn't throw for shit. Stupid monkeys. Stupid mayor. Barbarosa could feel the Mayor's glamor hanging heavy in the air, and he new Bud would be insensible before long. Had Tyra forgotten how much of a shit assignment it was to track the Mayor?
Finally, Barbarosa caught sight of the Mayor, sitting by a murky pool where the slot canyon walls parted just enough to give a few yards' diameter of breathing room. The Mayor sat on a small foldable stool, resting his feet in the pool. A red ochre robe draped over his body, including a deep hood that buried his face in shadow. The fabric hung loosely over his form and glistened in a disturbing way like so many strands of wet flesh. The Mayor didn't stir as Barbarosa and Bud squeezed through the last narrow stretch before the canyon widened out again.
Finally, the two friends pushed into the open space, standing on the waterlogged clay, regarding the Mayor sitting by his pool. Barbarosa considered that he might be asleep, but he didn't really believe that. He waited, hair standing on end, tail between his legs. The Mayor made no move. Bud sagged against the canyon wall, his back to the cool stone, head bowed under whatever pressure the Mayor brought to bear on his monkey mind. Barbarosa sighed. Normally, he loved the dark canyons with their cool springs. Normally, he loved watching the minnows dance in the shallow waters. Normally, this would be a refuge for his kind, but the Mayor had an annoying way of twisting that.
Bud made no sound, instead knuckling his temples hopelessly. Barbarosa's lip curled unhappily, and then he growled bearing a row of sharp teeth. His voice resounded in the circular chamber, floating up toward the sliver of sky, before being lost in the vaulted canyon walls.
The Mayor shifted languidly in his chair, his feet making ripples in the murky pool. The tadpoles scattered before resuming their slow dance beneath the water's quaking surface. The Mayor's hood turned to face toward them, the fabric stretching smoothly like a snake's skin but never revealing the face underneath.
"I was having such pleasant dreams," the Mayor hissed in a quiet silky voice that carried perfectly over the naked stone of his court.
Barbarosa rolled his eyes.
"So, little one, why have you brought him to me? Does he desire my company?" The Mayor peered at Bud from beneath his hood, but he addressed his question to Barbarosa.
Barbarosa shook his head glumly. So the Mayor was going to be like this.
"So what brings you here? His business or yours?" Barbarosa couldn't read the Mayor's expression from the deep shadow of his hood, but he imagined the Mayor's eying the both of them with this question.
Barbarosa looked back at Bud meaningfully. The man groaned, rubbed at his forehead, and sunk a little lower against the wall.
"Perhaps he wishes to drink from my spring? Or bathe in my mud?"
No, Barbarosa shook his head again. He felt the strength of the Mayor's glamor in the air, flexing like the glistening fibers of his robe. Burning Barbarosa's nose with the heavy smell of wet creosote and the tang of pine resin. No, Barbarosa did not trust his friend to make the right answer here. As if to confirm his fears, Bud cracked his eyes open and stared longingly at the muddy pool that lay between them and the Mayor. Barbarosa turned to his friend and growled. The sound rang through the Mayor's stony alcove and made Bud jump a bit. His eyes snapped up from the shimmering waters.
"Mr. Mayor," Bud offered, but no further words escaped his lips.
"Well met, Bud the Barkeep. I quite like that place," the Mayor paused, crooking his knees underneath his stool and leaning forward, "How about I show you the meaning of drink. Something that will make you throw your hands up and laugh —or scream— in God's face." The Mayor regarded them intently as though he expected Bud to consider this proposal seriously.
"Wha-" Bud began, but Barbarosa cut him off with a fierce growl.
"Fine, little one," the Mayor dipped his hood to Barbarosa, "I see that none shall lie beside my still waters today."
The not-dog watched the Mayor considering him, and the robed figure slouched a little lower on his stool. "I am tired. If not to share my charming company, or partake in my hospitality, why have you sought me this day?"
The full force of the Mayor's glamor fell on Bud like an arrow of sunlight from the distant sky. The man's legs buckled, planting his knees in the soft mud of the canyon floor.
"Speak. My dreams are waiting."
"Robot..." Bud managed to croak out, a gleam of desperation entering his eyes as his face strained, fighting against the well of gravity that strove to drive him deeper into the mud.
"A robot?" the Mayor sounded quizzical though his hood hid expression and his whole face, save for the tip of his chin. "What robot? And. Why. Should. I. Care."
Barbarosa glared at the Mayor. For all his power, he could be as dense as the thick clay that lined this forsaken canyon bed. The not-dog jumped up, balancing on his hind legs and held up a forepaw beside each ear. He looked at the Mayor pointedly.
"Ah, thank you, little one. You have a clearer voice than your friend," the Mayor flicked his hood idly at Bud.
"A thinking machine? Why didn't you say so before?" The Mayor paused, and when he spoke again, his voice carried a smile, "Well, that is worth my time." Then his languid form snapped into action like a snake uncoiling to strike, and in the next moment, he strode around the pool, breezed past Barbarosa and the nearly prostrate Bud, before slipping away down the canyon. His glamor dampened his splashing footfalls to a graceful patter of summer rain.
Barbarosa had to lick Bud's face to bring him back to his senses, and even so it was a full half hour before the man shivered to his feet. The two picked their way out of the canyon and back into the waking world, each wondering what they'd find when the Mayor was done with Byeju and the bar.