 The Tale:Thrice Upon a Time, three worlds exist, alike but separate. On one world faeries suffer in a devastating war against hordes of centaurs and satyrs. On another world, tiny golbins scrabble about the ruins of strange, giant machines left by a race of vanished Titans.
And on a third world humans and dwarves are ruled by five immortal dragons. Reigning over theocracies of magic, these dragonkings use monks and priestesses to keep the peace by removing the insane -- the troubled, violent "Elect" -- from society.
Galen Arvad, a young blacksmith, hides a terrible secret from his bride and his dwarven friends, cephas. By night he is plagued by dreams of a winged woman, a goblin, and a mysterious stranger. During the Day he is tortured by common objects -- statues, swords, doorknobs -- that talk to him. Unable to shield his eccentricities from the monks' magic staffs, Galen is taken prisoner, dragged away from his beloved, and forced into exile.
Now among madmen, Galen Arvad plunges into a deep chasm of intrigue and adventure. The Grand Inquisitor of the monks appears trapped in Galen's visions. Lunatics of the Elect proclaim Galen their leader. The winged woman in his dreams influences events in the waking world. And Galen realizes that his madness is a sign of magic ... a revelation that enrages the dragonkings.
For Galen's sorcery could bridge realms and strike down living gods. But can Galen learn to use his power before he's destroyed by the monsters that rule his world?
The Players in
Mystic Warrior:
the players in the First Tale of the Bronze Canticles are presented for your enlightenment and enjoyment. See their Portrates and learn more about the charaters of these new worlds.
+ Main Menu + Visions + Creators + Worlds + Tales + Bazaar + Village
Dwynwen’s quarters were on the northern, land side of the Sanctuary above the main gate. The Queen’s Servants, Third Caste Servitors of the First Estate, populated this section of the glorious structure. Maids,
Butlers
, Cleaners, Servers, Washers, Dyers, Tailors, Cooks, Chamberlains – in short, anyone who served on the floors of the Queen – were all quartered in this section of the Sanctuary. Each felt the privilege of their caste deeply. They honored their ancestors for providing it and they honored their children with its inheritance.
The happy caste of royal servants could look out from the shining crystal panes of their quarters and down on the busy populace of Qestardis that was, in every way, below them. The laborer castes and trade castes of the Second and Third Estates were all of lower rank. The servants looked from their windows and gave thanks that they were not among them. Of course, there were other castes above them – scholars, warriors, and a host of castes related to the royal lineage – which all looked down on the servant caste from their higher rooms of the Sanctuary. But to the Servants, this was as it should be.
Only the Seekers upset their carefully ordered view of the world beyond the crystal.
Seekers, such few as existed, were included among the serving caste, although with some peculiarity. The abilities of the Seeker for the second sight mysteriously flowered outside of caste. Thus, Seeker talents might suddenly be evidenced in lower castes. When brought to the attention of the court at Qestardis, these rare and prized individuals were tested and, if found with this peculiar gift, elevated often far beyond their former caste stature.
Thus, the other servants looked on the Seekers with a great deal of suspicion and not a little envy. Seekers were ‘out of their place’ in the great scheme of the faery gods. It was all un
j
ust and somehow unnatural. So the others of their often new peer caste shunned the Seekers, tolerating them to the letter of royal decree and not a degree further.
Dwynwen ignored their disdain. It had become to her as a vague but persistent sour smell in one’s own house, something bothersome at first but, in time, blending into the background of daily experience. She knew their contempt but no longer registered it in her mind.
So it was that when Dwynwen alighted on the Grand Servant’s Balcony, she took no notice of the scorn tossed her way with such a studied casualness. She crossed the polished marble floor of shaped inlay and down the long curving hall teaming with her fellow faeries in the service of the Queen. She spoke to no one, and no one spoke to her. She could not have been more alone had she been at the top of the Star’s Throne peaks themselves.
She passed a succession of oval doorways shaped into the ornate wall. Each held a unique pattern coaxed from the wood from which it was formed. At last, she came to a door whose pattern was happily familiar to her. She touched her hand to its surface. The fibers of the wood warmed and twisted at her touch, separating as they pulled back into the framework of the oval.
Dwynwen stepped quickly inside and gestured at the door for it to close immediately behind her. She
j
ust could not bear to explain the condition of her quarters to someone from the housekeeping caste that might happen to pass by her door. Once glance around the room assured her that the sight might cause one of those obsessive pixies to faint and die on the spot.
Her quarters were decorated in an early period bedlam – which is to say, they were not decorated at all. True, the outlines of the original furniture –- endowed by the Queen – were still discernable to the trained eye. They were nevertheless obscured by an explosion of colors, fabrics, ob
j
ects, paintings, carvings, scrolls, clothing, bedding, scrawled notes, haphazard stacks of vellum, a menagerie of toys and, especially, games.
Cavan flew raggedly into the room under a stack of Dwynwen’s clothing. He strained against its weight, puffing his words out in short breaths. “I see ... that you have ... have been working.”
Dwynwen winced. This always happened when she was under some pressure to discover a new truth. She always started her search with clean chambers – pristine, in fact – and then it all fell apart as she focused single-mindedly on the application of her skills to her work at truth-seaking.
“Yes, I have been working,” Dwynwen sighed. “But I’m too troubled to concentrate
j
ust now. I need to relax.”
“Relax! With all the trouble in the kingdom you want to lie down and...”
Dwynwyn’s eyes locked on Cavan with a stare that froze him in mid flight.
“It will take a few minutes,” Cavan bobbed again beneath the stack of clothes, “but I can have your bed ready for you.”
“No, I’m not tired,” Dwynwen said testily, her gaze going out into the deep night. The city below her had quieted down into sleep. The glow of the city militia drifted through the still streets under her gaze. “I
j
ust want to think for a while.”
“Thinking is work,” Cavan huffed, dumping his burden into a large basket in the corner of the room. “How about a game? Something mindless?”
Dwynwen chuckled. “Mindless games? That would be just fine, Cavan, but just for a while. How about Sylan-sil?”
“What?” came the muffled response under yet another pile of clothing bobbing across the room.
“Never mind ... I’ll set up the game,” she said as she removed the long mantle of her office from around her shoulders and tossed it onto the floating stack. It dipped downward under the added weight. Cavan groaned in the air but made no other sound.
Dwynwen grasped several stacks of parchment from off the table in the center of the room and shifted them over to her desk near the window. There actually was no clear space on the desk either, so she simply stacked those papers on top of previous stacks with the mental note that she would need to separate them out again sometime later. In short order, she had cleared the low table as well as the chairs which faced each other across its surface.
“Do you know where I put the game?” Dwynwen called out to Cavan, as she searched through several wooden cases stacked in one corner.
“I do not!” Cavan replied as he returned to the room. His glow had a decidedly rosey hue to it from his exertions. “How many times have you told me never to disturb your things no matter where you set them?”
“I know. It’s just that I thought you might have seen it while you were ... oh, never mind, I’ve found it.” Dwynwen pulled a large case made of polished rosewood from behind an avalanche of scrolls.
“Wonderful,” Cavan groused. “Our kingdom is about to be conquered and I get to stop and be bested by your superior play.”
“You never know,” Dwynwen smiled, pulling an inner box from the sleeve of the outer case. “The fates may favor you this time.”
“It is your skill that I fear, not the fates.” Cavan drifted down through the air and settled onto the chair’s cushion opposite the Seeker. “Still, if it will help you rest, then I am happy to oblige.”
Dwynwen opened the hinged outer case completely and lay it flat on the table, revealing the inner playing surface now framed by the sides. Beautifully intricate carvings formed grids and curving lines across its surface in a pleasing array. It was the beauty of the board which had attracted her to the game when she first saw it in a strange little shop in
Bay
Narrows
. The shopkeeper there had told her he had purchased it from a merchant trader from Shivash but that he did not know anything else about its origins. There was something special about it, however, which had attracted her to it. The only problem she had was finding someone willing to play it with her. Playing a game with the royal
family
would be outside her place. No one of her own caste would have anything to do with her. That left her servant, Cavan, who, she had to admit, was tiring of losing to her so often.
“I’ll let you choose your colors,” Dwynwen said politely as she opened the inner case. Four sets of eleven worn stones, each of a different color, lay within. Each was cut into regular facets with different facings and each facing had a different symbol.
“You always let me choose my colors,” the sprite replied with a frown.
“After the throw?” Dwynwen offered.
The sprite’s glow increased with his smile. “Now that’s more like it! I’ll take four and three.”
“And I’ll take all eleven,” Dwynwen smiled. She pulled all eleven of the speckled grey stones from the case. “Are you ready?”
“Just a moment,” Cavan said. The small pixie had managed to pull three of the black stones and four of the yellow stones from the case but was having difficulty holding them all at once. “It’s just that ... very well, yes, I am ready.”
Dwynwen nodded. “Ready? ... NOW!”
They both tossed the stones into the frame of the board. The tokens bounded about the inside of the board, careening off each other and bouncing inside the frame. In a few moments, each piece had settled to a place on the etched surface. Dwynwen made a few minor adjustments to their placement, setting them more squarely on the board’s markings, then looked up quizzically at the pixie.
Cavan smiled, “I believe I’ll take the grey!”
Dwynwen nodded. “A strong starting position, I’ll grant you. Perhaps the fates will be kind to you after all, Cavan.”
“Perhaps,” the pixie said, his wings fluttering as he came to hover over the board, inspecting it. “But the fates always seem to be a mixed blessing with a humor all their own. They are just as quick to rob victory from a sure bet as they are to grant victory to a lost cause.”
Dwynwen sat back in her chair, considering Cavan’s words. “That is rather profound for a sprite. Have you been of the scholar caste all this time and not told me?”
Cavan smiled as he moved a large piece down a carved line of the board. “Why, no, Seeker! I’m just of the third caste ... but I’m open to a better offer.”
The Seeker chuckled. “That’s well and good here, Cavan, but I wouldn’t go repeating that outside these rooms. I have enough trouble on my own without having to pull you out of it, too.”
“What was it like,” Cavan asked, settling back on to his chair. “I mean before you came here.”
Dwynwen considered her own move on the board. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been so long ago, I don’t remember very well.”
“Well, yes it has but ... but you changed castes. What were you before?”
“Cavan, I’m sure I’ve told you this before.”
“Perhaps, but I’d like to hear it again.”
“Very well. I was of the Sixth Caste, strictly Second Estate.” Dwynwen spoke absently, moving two of her smaller stones in response. “My father was a shaper in the Griffith Wood just a short way east of Kien Yanish. Mother was in the trades, too. She was a linen weaver, at least, that’s what I remember her doing. I don’t remember much about her, actually ... except that she seemed very sad.”
“So, what truth leads a girl of the Sixth Caste from the Griffith Woods to the Second Caste and Seeker for all Qestardis?” Cavan replied, frowning as he spoke at the results of his opponent’s move.
“Strange fates, indeed.” Dwynwen leaned back from the board gazing out the crystal window once more and into the darkened world beyond. “My gift was obvious at an early age. It was hard on my parents since I obviously was not to inherit their gifts but they had hopes for me of bettering my life as a Seeker. A Wanderer of the Fourth Caste, unsanctioned, really, took me on to work passage to Qestardis for the testing. I toured with her for a time. We were performing new combinations in Rivadis when Seeker Polonis first saw me. Do you remember Seeker Polonis?”
“I do,” Cavan said, finally making his own moves on the board. “She was unpleasant and rude. I never liked her.”
“That’s because you never knew her,” Dwynwen replied. “She took me in for the testing, helped me find my inner sight and taught me the more practical truths of the Fae Courts. That is how I came to know Princess Aislynn and her
family
. Then Polonis was gone and Aislynn’s mother ascended the throne at about the same time. Fate does, indeed, deal a mixed blessing to...”
Dwynwen stopped staring at the game board.
Cavan looked up. “Seeker?”
Dwynwen spoke in hushed tones. “The pieces on the board, Cavan, there is something different about them.”
The sprite looked carefully at the stones arrayed before him. “No, Seeker ... they look the same to me.”
“They seem to me as though the board itself were all the
land
of
Sine’shai
,” Dwynwen spoke, her eyes narrowing. “The pieces are as people on that land, each poised to find one another.”
“They are only stones, Seeker,” the pixie asserted.
“This one,” Dwynwen pointed to a large, grey stone with a low caste symbol, “this one is the wingless man I met atop the falls! He journeys across the waters toward his fate. These others,” she pointed to the other side of the board, “they pursue him to his benefit. But these stones drive the creature toward...”
“Toward what, Dwywen?” Cavan spoke in awe, his eyes wide. “I don’t see anything!”
Dwynwen’s finger drifted across the board toward the near left corner of the board. It stopped, pointing toward three red stones, one large with a low caste symbol on its upturned face and two smaller with showing much higher caste designs.
“Toward these,” she breathed. “They are driving him toward these.”
Dwynwen abruptly stood up, snatching the stones from the board.
“Perhaps I have been looking for my answer with the wrong eyes.” The Seeker said, excitedly looking at the game pieces in her hands “Perhaps the truth I seek is found not in our world’s truth.”
“Perhaps, Dwynwen,” Cavan raised his eyebrows gleefully as he looked at the upset board, “this means that I’ve finally won a game after all.”
Dwynwen whispered to the large grey stone in her right hand. “What truth do you hold, man with no gift? And what danger are you running toward?”
She gazed long at the red stones in her left hand. One was warm, one was cold, and one of them seemed very familiar to her.
I am a sinner.
My soul is harrowed with guilt. I plead for the purifying grace of the dragon’s eye. I cry blood-tears at the anguish and torment that awaits me for I have strayed from the light and my mind wanders in dark and awful places, hidden from the sight of the dragon.
It is not the eye of Vasska that is upon me now. My soul lies under the gaze of an enormous giantess. It is the winged woman! It is her beautiful, terrible eye that looks upon me now as she examines me in silence.
Her beauty is temptation incarnate. The dark, smooth skin torments me with thoughts and desires that are outside my vows. She beckons me away from my faith, from my teachings, from all that is holy and good. She draws me toward her darkness. Her voice is a song of longing more painful in its beauty than my words can give utterance. My prayers beg that I never hear that voice again. My heart cries that I would forfeit my life to hear it only once more.
Vasska protect me! Vasska come to my aid! Dragon of strength and spirit of creation incarnate, do not leave me here alone in my torment!
I stand in the palm of the winged demon-woman’s hand. She stands taller than mountains, her glorious head among the clouds of the sky. From her hand, I look down on the face of the world far below. The coasts of the Dragonback and the
Chebon
Sea
stretched toward the sunset, and the lands of my home – of Hrunard – barely visible through the obscuring haze of distance. It appears to me as though I stood above a map. Yet it is not a map, for I look down on it as though from the tops of the clouds.
Is this how the dragon-gods view the world in their flight? Is this the vision that Vasska caries with him? If so, is this not also a forbidden sight and do I not also blaspheme even as my eyes drink in the wonder of it?
I sojourn in blasphemy. I travel the paths of the damned. Were I not in sin, would I not be mad?
Vasska strengthen me!
I turn in the hand of the woman. There is Vasska! Has he come to me for my deliverance? Has he interceded through my prayers?
There, too, is Mother Edana arrayed in her ceremonial robes. I call out to them, begging them for help, but they do not hear! I confess and beg for absolution but they do not respond to my cries! I try to run toward them, to make them listen and understand, but the dark, winged demon that holds me has other plans.
Her hand turns slowly over.
I tumble into the air, screaming, and clawing at the rushing wind. I fall through the clouds toward the waters of th
e H
adran Straights, frantically looking about. Mother Edana tumbles unconcernedly through the air. Even Vasska falls, his wings inert, immobile. The winds of the winged she-demon’s breath catch them as they fall. Edana and Vasska tumble in the gale, tossed and buffeted by winds toward the far shores of Hrumra. In moments I lose sight of them in the clouds as they fly further and further from me.
Am I then damned? Has even Vasska turned his eye from me? Is the power of this demon woman greater that that of the gods of our world?
Despair clutches at my heart. I do not resist my fate. I fall knowing that I am lost. Why has my faith failed me in my hour of its need? Why has my faith failed me in this terrible place?
Wherein did I sin?
The black waters of the sea rush up toward me. I can now discern the ships of the Vasska fleet, carrying home the harvest of condemned souls from the far reaches of the empire. I fall toward the ships, their tall masts point as daggers toward me in the sky. These deadly toys below me grow larger by the moment.
As I watch, the ship below me groans and contorts. Its railings shift, and the planks of its deck warp horribly. The masts curl back on themselves. The ship is horribly deformed into the face of a man – of that man!
The man that walks in my dreams ...and now haunts me by day as well. Was I asleep when I saw him by the waterfall? Now again he appears as a contorted ship tossed on rough seas. The ocean waves break against his face, running of at the corners of his eyes like great saltwater tears. The eyes gaze up blankly toward me, the wooden face filled with torment. Its mouth groans open, a black void beyond it. It gapes toward me in a silent scream. My own scream cannot fill the void.
I fall into the maw of the man’s wooden face and an eternity of blackness…
* * * * *
Tragget awoke with a start, shivering in the darkness of his ornate litter. The torusk beneath him, to which the compartment was mounted, continued to sway gently. The pillows and cushions of the enclosure held him in a comforting embrace but did not alleviate him of his panic and dread.
The Inquisitor pulled the curtains aside. The salty tang of the shore assailed his senses on the pre-dawn mists. They had journeyed all through the night, rushing to beat the dawn. The darkness was already thinning, however, and they were not yet at their next stop. Tragget leaned out slightly, hoarsely whispering to the handler who sat on the neck of the Torusk just forward of the litter. “Gendrik! How long before we can embark?”
Gendrik turned slightly in his saddle. He was a practiced handler, his long, crooked guide pole held with a steady touch against the torusk’s right tusk even as he spoke. “We are making good time, Lord Inquisitor. We shall have our charges onboard before the sun breaks.” Gendrik turned to face forward. It was not the first time this night that Tragget had asked him this question. “You should rest, my Lord. I will wake you when we approach the port. Get some sleep.”
Tragget drew back into the litter. Sleep, he thought, I would avoid it if I could. He rubbed his hands across his face, and then pressed them against either side of his forehead. Perhaps, he thought wildly, if I pushed hard enough these tortured visions would leave me. I could force them out of my mind and be pure and holy once again. I could stop living this nightmare and make everything right, the way it use to be.
But the face still haunted him. He had seen that same face weeks ago, dreaming his wicked dreams in his own quarters deep within the
Temple
at Vasskhold. It was the vivid images of those dreams that had driven him across the sea to the Dragonback in the first place - visions that lead him with unnerving accuracy to a forgotten, unimportant little speck of a town. He remembered wondering at the time just what the face symbolized in his dream. He was sure it was some sort of metaphor or analogy for some other problem that he would find there and solve. That, at least, is what he told himself on each step of the fated journey.
Then, horribly, he had found that face was not some figment of his fevered dreams but flesh and bone in the waking world. Now he flitted about the image of that face like a moth about a fire, knowing it would destroy him but unable to leave his fascination with it all the same.
There was only one thought that offered him hope. If he understood these horrible episodes, he reasoned, then he would no longer fear them. Children hide from the monsters in the darkness. Shine the light, however, and the shadows vanish, the darkness flees and the monsters are discovered to exist only in dreams. His monsters did live in his dreams – and if he could shine the light of understanding on those, perhaps he could banish them and his sins as well.
It all had something to do with that shadow-man of his nightmares now, somehow, made flesh. So the flame comes with the moth, Tragget thought. This time, the moth will study the flame from safety and when it is properly understood...
...Then the flame would be extinguished.
* * * * *
South of the Begoth Rill, the plain sloped in rolling undulations down to the north shore of the
Chebon
Sea
. The
South Shore Road
wound its way across these gentle hills. It continued on toward the large
port
of
Hadran Head
and more interesting destinations further along on the western coast. The road had been packed and hardened over the years by the travelers, merchants and their assorted beasts that regularly passed down its familiar path, beating a wide furrow into the ground.
Gendrik knew that road well, but he knew other roads, too. In the gray predawn, he wrapped the crooked end of his long pole around one of the tusks of the torusk and pushed it. The torusk obliged by turning his head and lumbering off the highway down a barely discernable trail. The torusks of the caravan each followed suit, their great clawed feet churning up dust in the darkness. They moved in this dim cloud through the darkness, down to the sea.
At the back of a long finger cove nestled a forgotten and unimportant backwater known as Stoneport. The fishing was poor here and the waters were generally exposed too directly to the sea to be much of a safe harbor.
Disadvantage, however, can be turned to profit given the right circumstances. Because local business was poor, the town residents were appreciative of whatever money came their way. They were grateful enough for the largess of the church to keep their mouths conveniently shut.
Moreover, the bay may have been exposed, but it was also deep – deep enough for great Pir ships to anchor unnoticed by anyone who might care.
Tragget watched the town as they approached. The shacks and hovels had all dutifully shuttered their windows and closed their doors. No one cared to know what was passing by their meager homes. No doubt, they told themselves it would be a grievous sins for good members of the Pir Drakonis to question the questioners of the church. Besides, the great rust-colored ships with their folded wing sails would be gone soon enough and the town would be all the richer for its turning a righteous blind eye.
The muddy road wound down to a large clearing east of the fishing docks. Tragget saw the fishing boats of the village already waiting at the shore, each manned by crew from the Pir ship. Tragget smiled. He had heard about the efficiency of the Pir-Elar, the secret operatives of the Kardis Orders, but rarely got to the outlying areas to see it function first hand. The villagers apparently did not mind having their boats assist the Elar in their work - most likely for an added fee. In turn, so far as the church was concerned, the fishermen more or less were maintaining boats the Elar only occasionally needed for their own purposes. It was a wonderful arrangement, benefiting everyone...
Except the Elect, of course. Tragget’s smile waned at the thought. Yes, except for the Elect.
The monks of his own order alighted from their litters at the end of the column. They had kept a watchful eye on their charges throughout the night. For the last hour or so, the prisoners had gotten quiet, lulled by the motion of the torusks and drained of hope. Now, with the change of rhythm, they were slowly becoming active again. The monks of the Inquisition would need to watch them more closely now.
“Would your Lordship wish to board now?” Gendrik asked from his perch.
Tragget remained in his litter, peering furtively out from between its curtains at the activity in the caravan. “No, Gendrik, thank you.”
“But, my Lord, the jollyboat is along side the pier and awaits your pleasure.”
“No, Gendrik!” Tragget’s voice carried more impatience than he intended. He brought it under control at once. “No, thank you. I’ll board in good time.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
One by one, the torusks were lead down into the water at the shore. The individual cages of the Elect were in this manor brought next to the gunnels of the shallow draft fishing boats. Each was then grappled and pulled roughly onto the deck, its occupants tumbled one on top of the other. They cried out, rousing the others in their cages to start shouting and screaming as well.
There were no concerned ears to hear them.
Tragget watched from the security of his litter as each of the cages was pulled aboard. Soon one of the ships decks was crammed with cages. The Aboth-Marei pilot stood in the pilot’s cage on the ships prow and called out into the waters below. The placid surface of the water roiled suddenly with movement as an enormous merdrak serpent – the dragons of the deep – butted against the ships bows from beneath and swung the ship out into the harbor. In a few minutes its place was taken by another waiting ship and the process was repeated.
Where was the man? Tragget thought nervously. Where was that face? Was he dreaming yesterday or was it real? No, it had to be real. He had seen him twice and…
There he was. Tall and lanky, his hair was disheveled and his face was red. He still wore that ridiculous rose-colored doublet. They had managed to get him back into the wicker cage and had even posted a series of monks in shifts to watch him. No one had figured out how he could have escaped from the cage - yet another mystery in a man who held far too many for Tragget’s peace of mind.
Peace of mind, he thought, maybe that’s what I seek.
He watched intently as the young man’s cage was pushed sideways onto the next boat. He did not take his eyes off it, afraid that it might vanish somehow with the morning mist. Other cages were dragged onto the deck as well but Tragget took no notice of them, his eye was fixed on the man. He watched until the little fishing boat made its way out to the larger, anchored ship. He watched until all the cages had been hoisted up onto the deck. He watched longer still without seeing anything but the haunting face of the nightmare man made real.
He saw in his mind a moth carrying a flame.
He saw the ship swallowing him in its distorted maw.
He closed his eyes. He had seen enough.
“Gendrik,” Tragget called out with a heavy voice, “I believe I would like to go aboard now.”
Mimic climbed down from the Titan’s nose, wiped his already filthy sleeve across his own nose, and sat on the rock with a pronounced thud.
Mimic was a goblin – the goblin engineer fourth class in the service of Dong Mahaj-Megong, King of the Goblins. It should have been a wonderfully illustrious and prestigious title, and might have been except for two things: first, there were only four engineers in the service of Dong Mahaj-Megong and, secondly, there were no fewer than twelve recognized and uncounted unrecognized claimants to the title ‘King of the Goblins’ each of them less than a hundred miles from his master’s august throne. Mimic decided that facts tended to put a damper on the majesty of most honored titles.
Mimic himself had few illusions as to his current status on the great bureaucratic totem that sat above him. He was short for a goblin – barely over four feet tall[1] – and not very good looking. His ears were not long enough and their points were somewhat rounded – a physical fault he had lamented with himself on more than one occasion. Worse, his left ear tended to droop more than his right, giving him a rather disconcerting off-balance appearance of less appeal to more symmetrically-minded goblins. The last stroke of bad grooming fortune involved his hair. His single tuft was bright white and completely uncooperative. No amount of coaxing would get it to stand straight up. Occasionally, when he happened upon some black grease from one of the derelict Titan machines, its application to his hair seemed to
shar
pen his image. Yet the grease was getting scarce and a particularly unfortunate mishap involving the Megong Bonfire Dance had nearly left him bald.
Since then he wore his old cap with the hole in the top and used it as best he could to hold his pathetic hairlock in something close to a respectable, vertical position. Even though Lirry smacked him around every morning yelling about ‘that stupid hat ain’t regulationatory’ Mimic knew different. So long as he wore his shirt of office – the orange shirt of the Engineer Fourth Class – he was within the established and well defined dress code of his class.
Besides, Mimic thought, Lirry would just find something else to beat him up for anyway. It was better to know what to expect. So every morning Mimic wore his hat and every morning Lirry smacked him around and Mimic took it quietly because for one thing, it never lasted very long.
And for another thing, Mimic silently knew that one day – he didn’t know when - but one day, things would be different.
Mimic said little to his fellow engineers but thought plenty to himself. He would envision wild stories about making a Titan fully functional one day –
j
ust by accident – and having it step on Lirry. Or he would be working on one of his little clockwork experiments and he would imagine it suddenly would start actually working – and it would blow a hole through Lirry’s head. Or he would find a gigantic tree cutting machine of the Titans and find a way to start it again
j
ust as Lirry...
‘Hey, Mimic!” It was Lugnut Lipik, the Second Class Engineer. He had
j
oined G’dag and Zoof leaping around the fire. “Look at us! We’re summoning the fire spirits!”
The rest of the Expeditionary Force had built a huge fire nearby. They would need the warmth as the night progressed since Mimic was sure that Lirry – the Expeditionary Boss – would never allow them to leave their prize for even nearby shelter.
This particular Titan they had found nearly whole. It was filled with lots of gears and wheels and even a couple of belts still intact. It was quite a prize, and Lirry should have pleased but he seemed
j
ust as sour as ever. ‘Nothing works!’ he had said after they had climbed all over the hulk, half buried as it was in the hillside. “How am I gonna get outta this
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ob unless you rock-knotted, tar-poopers get one of these things to MOVE?”
The first engineer shrugged, the second engineer shrugged, the third engineer shrugged and then Lirry smacked Mimic. All of this seemed perfectly equitable to the first through third engineers.
Mimic stood up with a deep sigh, turning his back on the fire. The ripple of its light flickered against the huge form of the fallen Titan, its metal still shining in places. The right arm was missing and the rest was buried in the hillside. What must they have been like when they walked the land, he thought. Their strides were over a hundred feet in length. Did the ground shake under their footfalls?
This Titan had nearly crested the Norvald Hills before it fell for the last time. Beyond its shattered form, the range dropped down to the west into the Cynderlond. A great battle had taken place there, long before his memory or the memory of anyone that he knew. Through the mists of distance, he could make out the Forge; the broken mountain which still hurled the molten blood of G’tok from its wound.
The view inspired Mimic with both awe and sadness at once. ‘Did they live there?’ he wondered. ‘Had his own people lived with them? Did his ancestors worship the Titans as gods? Why had the gods died?’
“Hey, Mimic! If you’re not going to dance then at least make yourself useful! The fire’s dying already!”
It took a moment before Mimic realized someone was yelling at him. He turned back to face his companions by the fire.
“Eh? What do you want?”
“I said the fire’s dying already here!” Lugnet said stamping his foot.
“Oh, right!” Mimic could see that the flames were quite low. “Be right with you.”
Mimic reached down with both arms and filled them with as many books as he could carry. Staggering over to the blaze, he dumped them quickly into the flames.
The fire roared and crackled back to life.
Mimic shuffled back to his rock and flopped down once more. These book-things were everywhere. A lot of Titans seemed to have a number of them inside. Sometimes they found entire buildings containing these books – stacks and stacks of them. Sometimes they had art-like pictures inside that showed machines – especially the ones they found inside the Titans themselves – but otherwise they were not very pretty. Lots of angular designs in lines on the page but after a while one lost interest because the angled lines didn’t mean anything and weren’t all that pretty.
They did, however, burn extremely well.
Mimic had begun to grow a bit uneasy about these books. Somewhere in the back of his thoughts, he wondered if there wasn’t something more to them than ornate fuel for bonfires. He honestly didn’t think the Titans had created them with that purpose in mind. So, if not bonfires - what did the Titans think the books were for? Why bother keeping so many of them around everywhere they went?
‘Maybe,’ he thought by the light of the burning books, ‘Maybe they were holy icons of the Titan’s gods! Maybe the Titans thought the symbols would protect them or bless them in battle.”
Maybe.
If so, then they didn’t do a very good job, he thought, gazing up at the broken iron face rising behind him from the hillside.
Mimic took in a long breath. It had been a hard day and the next would prove to be no easier. There was more of the Titan to salvage. Dong Mahaj-Megong would want as many trophies from this expedition as possible and Lirry was no doubt determined to more than please his own superiors in the Ministry of Acquisition and Theft.
The flames of the fire danced before him. In their waves of heat and light, there appeared to him a face - a thin, tall face with ugly, tiny ears. It’s skin appeared pail and terrifyingly smooth. It looked vaguely like some sort of horrid flesh-Titan - a ghostly spirit perhaps haunting this hilltop since the War Days.
Mimic knew that face. He had seen it in his dreams many times before.
Did this spirit come in the night through the flames of the fire? Mimic had handled books often. Perhaps the books were tombs for the spirits of the Titans and they had freed them in their burnings! Perhaps the spirit came to kill them even as they watched!
But the spirit made no move. Its image disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Perhaps it comes to kill Lirry?
Mimic smiled. With a sigh that made his left ear droop uncontrollably, he curled up on the rock and went to sleep ... thinking of the spirit chasing Lirry through all time.
I say this as an engineer first. As I have explained before, to be an engineer one must begin with the position of the argument and then find the facts that fit it. When discovering facts do not fit the argument, then one knows there is something wrong with the facts. One then needs to go out and get new facts that work. If this proves impossible, one may be forced to modify the original position of the argument with the sure knowledge that the new argument was actually the old argument all along, only remembered incorrectly by everyone else.[2]
This is science: the truth is only what we believe it to be. Life is merely a question of ignoring those facts that do not support your viewpoint.
It is important to understand this, as it has direct bearing on my arguments and the extraordinary circumstances of my life afterward.
Before this time, each of my encounters with the Creature was in my dreams. Dreams are constructs of our imagination or the manifestation of spirits intruding into our perspective viewpoint or the result of underdone meat. In any event, I found that in this particular dream, I was standing near the bonfire of my companions. They had all apparently fled for I saw none of them nearby.
The hideous Creature stood in the midst of the bonfire. His form was made entirely of the flames. His face was smooth and pinched while his ears were rounded as though by some terrible accident, as I have heretofore detailed to you. His robes glowed as though the embers of the fire itself.
I thought about how I might help him. He was constructed entirely of flame, and so I sought to encourage the fire by throwing another set of books into the conflagration. This I was making ready to do – but through his gestures he plainly forbade me. I felt thereby encouraged in my suspicion that there was something more important in the book than its burning.
I opened the book in my hand. The strange, angular designs that lined the page began to glow. As I watched in amazement, they drifted upward from of the surface of the pages and circled around the fire. As each spiraled up around the fire – and I must be perfectly clear on this – the angled designs pulled flame from the creature until they, too, burned.
Then, when the designs were burning white hot in the air, they flew over my head. Different designs branded themselves to different parts of the Titan. Each glowed for a time then faded, absorbed by the metal of the fallen giant, only to be replaced by more designs. The pages of the book began to turn over, leaf after leaf in my hand. The burning sigils flew faster and faster until the last of the pages was empty and the book slammed shut with a sound like the clap of thunder.
The last of the symbols faded against the iron shell of the Titan. I stood in unreserved amazement. I ad
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usted my cap and tried to straighten my recalcitrant hair to a more respectful vertical rise.
The sound was low at first but unmistakable. Ancient metal was moving.
As I watched, the great Titan began to rise.
Its hollow, metallic eye winked at me.
An Oral History of Mimic
Book I, pg. 32
[1] The original manuscript indicated this measure as being ‘five feet’ but the measure was according to goblin feet. Throughout this translation, however, we have converted most measures of time, weights and distances for both convenience and clarity.
[2] Readers and scholars of the Bronze Canticles have often noted the striking difference in the apparent eloquence of this text as compared to the other, third person accounts from the goblin realms. This oral history, dictated and passed down by memory due to the lack of any formal writing system known by the goblins, was embellished linguistically over the years. This passage from Mimic’s oral history is the only known source of Mimic’s first-hand experience. However, as it is highly self-serving and has certainly been heavily embellished to improve Mimic’s image as an educated goblin, the accuracy of the account is highly suspect. It is most improbable than he – or any other goblins – ever actually spoke this way. This is, nevertheless, typical of all goblin oral histories.
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