Preview Chapters for
Mystic Quest:
Chapter 7 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 27
(Wherein Dwynwyn considers her place as Queen of the relatively new Kingdom of Sharajentei.)
Dwynwyn, Queen of the Dead, drifted out of th
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all of Peace and between the delicate, dark spires of the city of Shara
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entis. She flew freely above its ever growing buildings, fortifications and spires. Granite grey towers rose with great angular faces from the bedrock far below the ancient floor of the Margoth Woods. Sheer walls of stone with stark, razor
shar
p angles radiated outward from the inner ward of the city forming a cascading series of battlements, towering retrenchments and ramparts that glowered down slick, polished vertical scarp above the enormous dry moat. Long strands of spider webs, woven at the behest of the necrodryads, hung from each of the spires, draping the city in a lacework shroud; a protection from assault by creatures of flight. A perpetual fog permeated the entire wood now, hiding the city from the eyes of the living yet allowed most of its citizens to see clearly the approach of any enemy.
It was the city of the dead – her domain – and its very existence threatened every one of the other Five Kingdoms of the Fae. For years beyond memory, the five original Fae kingdoms had struggled for domination, each over the others. A new, sixth kingdom threatened everyone – especially a kingdom with powers the other five could only envy.
The large stone garden surrounding th
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all of Peace fell quickly behind her. To her right she could vaguely discern the shadowy form of the Lyceum; itself a fortress of the living inside the kingdom of the dead. Dwynwyn could almost hear the recitations of the Oraclyn-loi – the Vision Pilgrims in training – drifting out from those long halls. Seekers from each of the Five Kingdoms
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ourneyed at considerable risk to present themselves
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ust to be considered for training in Dwynwyn’s Lyceum. Some came at the bidding of their jelous masters; others out of nearly fanatical obsession to attain the Sharaj – the ‘Power’ as they had come to call it. The limits of the Lyceum to instruct new Oraclyn initiates were exceeded almost at its inception. Many were turned away at the gates of Shara
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entis, only to return again in the hope of learning the Truth which Dwynwyn had discovered and the power of the visions they all
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ed.
What a strange fate has brought us all to this terrible destiny, Dwynwyn frowned.
The Shadow Guard – formerly dead warrior faeries of the Third Caste -- sailed about her in ever protective circles, their milk-white and pupil-less eyes darting here and there in their eternal watchfulness. Deython, Commander of the Dead, had insisted upon it, especially with his constant absence from the city. The truth of it was, Dwynwyn told herself, that when one commands the dead, there really is very little to fear from death itself.
The living, on the other hand, could cause you all kinds of trouble.
The labyrinthine streets and alleys below her seethed with movement. The restless dead never ceased their building, shaping and expansion of the city both inward and outward. They built because they were driven to activity; to stop, as she quickly became aware some twenty-six years before, was to suffer the torment of their condition. It was the nature of that torment that had become the greatest question of her own existence. It was to answer that question that drove her now.
Dwynwyn pushed her wings a little faster, soaring easily in her weaving path between the great spider webs surrounding her palace. The great tower rose high above the surrounding fortress, shining black obsidian from the fires at the heart of Sine’shai coaxed upward into a hideous shape. Its windows were darker pools reminiscent of eye sockets in skulls. The pillars surrounding the tower were shaped like great long bones, its arches formed into ribs. Its summit was crested with seven long curved towers in the shape of claws. It was repulsive to everything for which the faery stood and after twenty-six years Dwynwyn still shuddered to approach it. Everything about the city’s architecture said ‘go away.’ Her own palace seemed to scream revulsion to the very soul of the fae.
It was, of course, all the work of the dead. The dead faery had little use for the living and found their presence troubling at best. But they looked to Dwynwyn as their Queen and honored the living Sharajin – as Dwynwyn’s Seekers were called – whom they served. So they built for her this city and made it a fortress which no one would want even if they should be able by any means to take it.
My fortress, Dwynwyn sighed. My prison.
Dwynwyn banked around a particularly thick cluster of webbing and settled on a large balcony nearly a third of the way up the black tower. Her black and purple robes blended into the obsidian so as to make her almost invisible. She sighed and stepped forward. The blackness parted before her as she stepped into the darkness. Her guards remained outside, hovering about the entrance, the sound of their wings suddenly silenced as the obsidian closed once more behind her. The sound of her own footfalls sounded loudly in her ears as Dwynwyn stepped down the smooth, black corridor.
Now fully in the darkness, she hastily pulled open the fasteners of the black robe of her office. It was heavy and loathsome to her now. She nevertheless caught it before it fully fell to the floor and, feeling her way in the short corridor, hung it carefully on a stone hook protruding from the wall
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ust for this purpose. Dwynwyn shivered slightly in the cold, her light shift insufficient against the chill of dead stone. She closed her eyes for she knew what was coming next, the most terrible thing that she was forced to endure.
She took a blind step and then another. She caught her breath as she heard the sigh of a second portal open before her. She saw the brightness rise abruptly behind her closed eyelids. Dwynwyn pressed her lips together and opened her eyes.
Tears blurred her vision. Dwynwyn choked on a single, unbidden sob that racked her. Her step faltered and she was forced, as many times before, to grip the railing in order to steady herself as tears rolled down her cheeks hot and unchecked.
The oval space was nearly two hundred feet in length and fully a hundred feet across. Painfully white alabaster columns soared upward higher and higher, their delicate latticework exquisite in its expression of peace and harmony. It arched upward into a dome where sunshine fell in gentle rays from between what appeared to be soft clouds drifting through an achingly blue sky. Twin waterfalls in the northeast and northwest quarters of the curved walls cascaded over crystal-laced stones, their soothing tumble quietly murmuring through the hall. The pools at the base of the falls then ran into two streams ran around an oval dais before
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oining in a central pond. The floor of the hall was covered in a garden of unsurpassed beauty. The carefully molded shrubs and grasses were all shaded by the dappled light of impossibly graceful trees whose white bark ran upward into delicate silver-edged leaves that flashed in the gentle breeze. A small flock of birds fluttered through the air, their song a melody of contentment and rest.
It was the Garden of Dwynwyn and she wept each time she entered it. It was a pure, white heart in the center of death and darkness, her refuge and her strength. It was the symbol of life, beauty, peace and
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oy. It represented everything that her kingdom denied and all that she had sacrificed for the sake of the dead.
Existing among the dead could be endured, she knew – one grew numb with them, unfeeling and cold. It was coming back to life and its warmth that hurt – for only then did she fully appreciate what she had lost.
“Dwynwyn? What might I do for you?”
“Cavan,” Dwynwyn sniffed behind her sudden smile. “You always ask me that each time I return.”
“It needs the asking each time you return,” Cavan replied. The aging sprite had been Dwynwyn’s nearly constant companion for as long as she cared to remember. Now he hovered with some effort in the air, holding the collar of her royal receiving coat for her as he had each evening upon her return. He helped her into the white and silver lined garment as he spoke. “Out you go into that horror you call your kingdom each day and then expect to fall back into this island of sanity without missing a step. Honestly, you fall apart every time you return. Then it’s my
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ob to put you back together into some semblance of your former self.”
“Well, at least you know you’ll always have a
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ob,” Dwynwyn smiled. She collected herself and breathed deeply of the sweet air in her garden. It settled her further. Cavan was right; perhaps if the transition from the darkness to the light were more gradual she might not feel its pain so acutely, she thought. She might talk with Deython about it if she might see him again soon. Perhaps he could explain it better to her sub
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ects than she had.
“Your Ma
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esty,” came a voice from a single faery standing in the garden below. “I beg your forgiveness for intruding on you.”
She is always so formal, Dwynwyn smiled to herself as she closed her eyes and took in another deep breath. I wish she would relax a little. “Yes, Shaeonyn, of course. What is it?”
“Your Ma
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esty, the appointed time is at hand. I submit my humble personage to confer with your august self.”
“Your ‘august self’?” Cavan snipped, wrinkling his nose. “Just what kind of manners do they teach those Seekers down in Mnemnoris?”
“Be kind, Cavan,” Dwynwyn chuckled. “Shaeonyn is my apprentice.”
“And has been for too long, if you ask me,” Cavan replied. “Those Mnemnorian Fae – they speak more and say less than any other faeries I know!”
“And there certainly are none more skilled at the Sharaj than Shaeonyn,” Dwynwyn added.
“With the exception of yourself,” Cavan added quickly.
“You should certainly hope that is the case,” Dwynwyn chided, “or she could rival us both. I am fine now, Cavan. Would you do me the favor of securing the hall as you leave? I have urgent business to attend with my apprentice.”
Cavan hesitated for a moment. “I live to serve – as does all my house, Dwynwyn – but are you certain you...”
“Yes, Cavan,” Dwynwyn interrupted him in her haste. “Please leave us. I wish to be undisturbed.”
Cavan nodded though disapproval shown in his eyes. “As you wish,” he called as he quickly fluttered away through a side portal.
Dwynwyn waited until she was certain the portal had closed behind her sprite friend. The Sharaj they called it – the Power – for lack of any other word that might do. The advent of this New Truth into the world had shaken the very foundations of the fae. That Seekers should call truths into existence from their Orsyl – their visions – was a terrible and frightening thing, yet it was manifestly true and could not be denied. The fae had given it a name largely out of fear; they hoped that by giving the thing the form of a word it would somehow be diminished. It would take more than semantics of the fae language to contain the Sharaj.
Shrugging her shoulders as though the weight of her royal coat somehow did not sit well, Dwynwyn fluttered her wings and sailed over the railing toward the floor of her garden.
“Has she come?” Dwynwyn asked as she approached her apprentice.
“Queen Tatyana of Qestardis awaits your pleasure, Your Ma
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esty. I have taken the liberty of securing your garden personally and delight in telling you that your words will remain private. Will there be anything else before I withdraw?”
“Yes,” Dwynwyn nodded as she softly alighted on the dais next to her apprentice. “There are two things I want; first, stay and hear what we say to one another. It concerns you and I would rather you understand more fully the truth of what we are trying to accomplish.”
“Yes, Your Ma
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esty,” Shaeonyn murmured, her large eyes cast downward as she spoke. “And the other?”
“Please call me Dwynwyn.”
Shaeonyn hesitated, her silence speaking volumes.
“Well, perhaps we’ll
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ust deal with one thing at a time,” Dwynwyn said, relieving her shy apprentice of the awkward moment. “Please conduct Her Ma
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esty Tatyana to the garden at once.”
Dwynwyn watched Shaeonyn as she floated toward the western portal of the garden. She was lithe and beautiful, even among the fae, with a long, delicate neck, smooth copper skin and full lips. Her eyes were large, dark pools that bent down slightly at the corners, giving a perpetual sadness to her countenance. Her hair was a flaxen color – a peculiarity that marked her as one of the southern fae from th
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ouse of Mnemnoris.
She was the first, Dwynwyn reflected, to
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oin her in her exile. Shaeonyn had arrived one day as uncalled for and largely unwanted as the storm that had preceded her, in the encampment near this same spot over twenty years before. Dwynwyn still remembered looking out from under the rain-soaked awning at the wet and shivering faery seeker who had left her homeland, her Lady, and her caste because of a vision she had had of a faery seeker calling her to a place she had never known.
Dwynwyn had asked that shivering girl what she wanted.
“To see the vision clearly,” she replied haltingly, “to heed the call of the Sharaj and to master it.”
In all those years since and through all they had
shar
ed together – both in the vision’s mystery and in life’s struggle – Dwynwyn had never been able to get beyond the reverential deference that Shaeonyn always showed to her. That Shaeonyn was driven by her visions was clear to Dwynwyn, but
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ust what those visions were remained a mystery beyond the stone wall of her strict and proper bearing. Dwynwyn wondered if beyond that cold formality lay something too delicate to touch without bruising her apprentice.
She was skilled beyond even Dwynwyn’s abilities. Yet, for all that, the strength of her powers had been disappointing. She had an elegant command of the subtlety of the Sharaj but always seemed to tire easily and the power of her creations from the vision were never as strong as Dwynwyn would have liked. The Queen of the Dead still hoped for some new truth that could explain the problem, for she saw her successor in Shaeonyn.
Now, Dwynwyn knew, the visions of the Sharaj that had carried this seemingly fragile seeker to the Queen of the Dead were now about to carry her away. A wind was moving through Dwynwyn’s visions too, and she knew them to be carrying her apprentice eastward on a desperate task. Its success was far from sure for her vision did not carry that far.
Its failure, however, would certainly doom all the fae as surely as it had doomed the Kyree.
By the 26th year of the reign of King Mimic, the forces of the Grand Sub
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ugation Army had extended the boundaries of the Dong Maha
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Mimic Kingdom to consolidate and conquer the opposing kingdoms, clans, and empires from the Cynderlond Wastes to the southern boundaries of Kranc.
However, it was not until the GSA set siege to the heart of the Jilik Dynasty that Mimic accomplished the greatest prize of all in the capture of Thux, the Grand Wizard of Jilik...”
An Oral History of Mimic; Tome XVII, Folio II, Leaf 12
* * * * *
“Just a minute!”
Thux, Grand Wizard to the Goblin Emperor of the Jilik Dynasty was almost finished.
That, at least, is what he had absently told his wife each time over the last hour that she had stopped in her panicked rush to plead with him. Phylish’s tone had grown increasingly urgent and demanding and, he supposed in the back of his mind, rightly so. His experiment was taking longer than he had originally thought but then, he realized sorrowfully, it always did.
Standing a head taller than the goblin wizard, the wooden frame was lashed together with reeds from the nearby swamp, which he had cultivated there for
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ust this sort of thing. Inside the frame were several gears, their axel rods bolted through a wooden shingle, though he was still having trouble getting them to line up properly. These gears ran to a set of plates surrounding a strand of cable that ran from the top to the bottom of the frame. It was a complicated device designed entirely by Thux, and if it worked he was sure it would revolutionize the entire wizard industry throughout Jilik.
Which may not have been saying a great deal, since Thux was the entire wizard industry in Jilik. Thux reached up, removed his flat, blue ceremonial hat of office and slapped it against his filthy pants several times to shake of some of the rubble that had fallen on it. Flopping it back on his head, he scratched his short beard and gazed critically back into the workings of his device.
Then another massive booming sound literally shook the stones of the large vaulted chamber. Phylish shrieked, diving under a heavy nearby table, the rumpled mass of clothing she had been carrying scattered. Broken chips of stone fell from the cracking mortar of the stones overhead, trailing long cascades of fine dirt sifting through the air. One of the stone chips fell irritatingly into the mechanism itself. Thux growled to himself in disgust and leaned forward to blow the newly fallen dust and small rock slivers out of the device.
Phylish was hastily gathering up the garments from where she still knelt beneath the heavy workbench. “Thux! We’ve got to get out now! They’ve come! They’ll be here any moment!”
“I know, dear,” Thux answered absently as he reached in to ad
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ust another gear mounting. “Just one more minute and-’
“Just one more minute and we’ll both be dead!” Phylish shrieked. Thux could tell that she was doing her best to control her considerable temper. “The Emperor and the entire Grand Army of the Dynasty will be lost for sure!”
“I don’t think so, dear,” Thux said casually as he worked. “The Emperor left with the Grand Army of the Dynasty this morning on a scouting expedition to the south.”
“But the Titans are coming from the north!”
“Which is why I think the Emperor and his army will keep their casualties to a minimum,” Thux shrugged.
Phylish glared at him from under the table. “We’ll be murdered in our beds if we don’t get out now, I
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ust know it!”
Thux looked over at his wife through the haze caused by the cloud of dust in the large secret laboratory. He always called it his ‘secret laboratory.’ Really to anyone who would listen, including a few goblins from Kranc who had wandered in by accident while looking for the lavatory. Thux was not sure what a lavatory was but it could not possibly be grander than this room. Thick pillars rose into arches that supported the stone ceiling overhead. Numerous heavy tables lay between the pillars, each crowded with cogs, wheels, cables, rocker arms and sundry other mechanical ob
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ects in various states of disrepair, dismantling and dysfunction. Each represented a separate course of investigation for Thux and he felt a momentary pang at the loss they would represent when he did, indeed, finally leave with his wife. Their large traveling trunk lay on the last table in the row, its lid open wide and its contents seemingly desirous of escaping its confines. Phylish, now crawling out from under the table, had been trying to stuff ob
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ects into the case for the last hour with little success. Thux would have gladly helped her but could not interrupt his work, especially now that he was so close to a breakthrough.
“Phylish, they aren’t going to murder us in our beds,” Thux said matter of factly. “Our home was the northern edge of town. They have no doubt already burned both the house and its bed to the ground. Why don’t you
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ust finish packing, dear, and I’ll be right with you. It will only take another minute...”
Another muffled detonation rattled the hall followed almost at once by an even louder explosion. Phylish yelped, crawling backward with remarkable speed under the table and covering her head against the falling debris.
Thux eyed the device critically. “Just another minute and I think it will be ready for a test.”
Suddenly, an immense stone shook loose from the ceiling, whistling slightly as it fell. The granite block crashed directly down through a table opposite where Phylish huddled. Covered in billowing dust, the goblin woman bolted from her hiding place, still clinging to the wadded up clothing. Because the ground below them was still reeling and bucking from the impacts, her steps were uneven. Smoke from the fires outside was beginning to flow into the room.
“Hmm,” Thux observed. “They appear to be getting closer.”
Phylish threw her bundle into the trunk. The lid would not close despite her frantic efforts. “Thux, honestly! What is so important about that thing?”
“Ah, I’m glad you asked, dear,” Thux said brightly. He rather suspected that he wife asked him about his work primarily to make sure he was actually listening to her, but the goblin wizard did not mind. He always fancied that he impressed her with his brilliance and he loved to talk about his work. “I call it the Thux Variable Grabber. Tell me, what happens if you are hanging from a cliff by a rope and you let go?”
The ground shook violently again. “Thux! Please, there really isn’t time for...”
“No, I promise I’ll be brief and you’ll really think this is interesting,” Thux assured her even though he was pretty sure that she would not find it interesting at all. “What happens if you let go of the rope?”
“You plummet to your stupid and well-deserved death,” she answered with obviously overtaxed patience.
“Exactly,” Thux responded brightly. He felt he was really connecting with his wife. “But what happens if you
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ust hang onto the rope?”
“You dangle there stupidly until you die?” Phylish’s tone suggested it was less of a question than a suggestion.
“Of course!” Thux answered brightly. “But what happens if you let go of the rope
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ust a little?”
Phylish’s eyes narrowed. She answered him through clenched teeth. “You get to the end of your rope?”
“Yes, but slowly,” Thux replied, clapping and then rubbing his hands together with glee. “And that is what my new invention does. It lets go of this cable
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ust enough so that whatever is attached to it goes down slowly. I tell you the Thux Variable Grabber is a ma
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or technological leap forward which will...”
The western wall of the chamber suddenly bulged inward with the sound of cracking stone and collapsed downward into the room with a deafening roar. Smoke and dust billowed across the chamber through the opening. Phylish ran as quickly as she could to get away form the collapsing wall, her large feet staying
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ust ahead of the tumbling boulders. She reached for Thux’s hand
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ust as the dust cloud enveloped them both.
Thux choked on the billowing cloud, hacking the dryness out of his throat even as he turned. Phylish’s hand was still tightly in his grasp. He began feeling his way toward the other end of the laboratory. He knew their only hope for escape now lay past his Variable Grabber. Some part of him wondered for a moment if the Variable Grabber would have worked and he suddenly felt very sorry that he might not ever know.
The goblin wizard could hear his wife struggling behind him. “Come ... quickly my dear,” he wheezed between agonizing coughs. “I think ... you were right. It’s time – its time to leave.”
A sudden wind blew through the opening in the collapsed wall. The dust and smoke swirled under its breath and cleared. Thux turned, drawing his wife nearer to him as they saw sunlight streaming in through the ragged hole, its rays forming shifting columns in the debris-filled air. Then,
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ust as suddenly, the sunlight was cut off.
An enormous face, fully thirty feet tall, was peering through the opening. Its skin was made of pocked and rusted iron and it gazed down at them from enormous eyes, blank with no pupils. Its nose was short and upturned and its mouth small with thin lips. Part of its head was missing on it right side from the forehead back exposing a chaotic
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umble of pipes, some of which were cracked and hissing with leaking steam.
Thux took a careful step backward, pulling his terrified wife carefully with him.
The gigantic face turned toward their movement.
Thux stopped. Titans!
A scream of metal being forced to twist into new and unnatural positions filled what remained of the broken chamber. The face contorted, and Thux realized with a start that it was smiling at him.
“Thux,” Phylish whimpered. “I think it wants you.”
“I think you’re right, dear,” Thux stammered.
“I think we really need to leave now,” Phylish gulped.
“Yes, I think that would be a good idea.”
They both turned at once, running past the Variable Grabber toward the stairs as quickly as their feet could carry them. The doorway lay at the end of the supporting pillars of the hall, and lead into the deeper reaches of the Jilik Palace. The interior corridors on this level were complex and narrow, Thux reasoned as he ran, and might offer them a reasonably good opportunity to escape.
Phylish screamed, her large deep-set eyes widening with fear and disbelief.
The ceiling in front of them crumbled, its debris falling in front of the doorway. A colossal metallic hand and arm were plunging down through the stonework, four of its original five fingers curving with the terrible sound of scraping metal, reaching into the room for them.
Thux yelled a wordless cry of anguish as he skidded to a stop. He still held tightly to Phylish’s hand, pulling her around him as he stopped. There were several exits from the secret laboratory in order to accommodate the numerous visitors and occasional tours that the Emperor liked to conduct. One of them had to lead to safety; one of them had to offer him a way out of his own folly.
The gigantic hand rushed across the floor toward them, its arm carving a gash through the ceiling overhead. Hot sparks flew from the rusting metal as it scraped against the stone flooring.
Wildly, Thux thought of the Variable Grabber device. Perhaps if he could use the device on one of the outside cables that supported the palace, he and his beloved could slide to safety. It would be a daring and romantic rescue the likes of which had never been seen in all the history of the goblins. It would endear him to his wife forever and make him the stuff of legend and myth for generations to come. He would be the hero of Jilik, the greatest wizard that had ever lived.
He tripped, stumbled and fell. His head landed, wizards hat and all, in the supporting framework of the Variable Grabber.
Yes, he thought. I’ll be a hero after all. I’ll
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ust lower the mechanism slowly, take it out of the framework and escape!
Gazing upward at the Variable Grabber suspended above him, he activated the device.
It did not work as expected.
I was suddenly on a hilltop blinking at the clouds racing overhead. They were blood red in a strange twilight. I sat up carefully, wondering what fates had brought me to so strange a place. My immediate concern was for my wife, who had been with me but moments before but whom now had vanished from me or I from her. Large gears, cogs, pistons and other assorted pieces of machinery lay half buried in the rich and loamy ground of the hill, partially obscured by the soft grasses that waved about me.
“Phylish!” I called. “Phylish! Where are you? Where am I?”
I heard a sound behind me growing louder by the moment. I quickly stood up, fearing that perhaps the shouts were coming from my wife and I turned my face into the wind.
It was a small goblin the likes of which I had never seen before with large, leathery wings. He seemed to be having some difficulty navigating in the wind that was blowing about us. His arms were flailing as he whirled tail over head. This odd goblin flipped over suddenly and smashed into the ground. He was still rolling along among the blades of grass when the wind caught his partially open wings once more and lifted him backwards
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ust above the ground and directly toward me. I put my hands out to protect myself but the impact still tossed me backward off my feet. More by instinct than any design, I wrapped my arms around this strange being, folding his wings under my arms. He fell on top of me as I pitched over back first onto the hilltop.
“About time you came!” the winged-goblin replied. “I’ve been looking for you for the longest time.”
I struggled to push him off of me with little success for his flopping wings made it difficult. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”
“Me? How can you ask such a questions?” the strange little creature sounded as though his feelings were hurt. He rolled off of me, his wings rattling awkwardly in the breeze. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your old friend Lunki?”
“Well ... of course not!” I responded with all the confidence I didn’t feel. His facial features were obviously those of a goblin, and there was something familiar about him though I couldn’t place it at the time. He had a streak of brilliant white running through the otherwise rust colored shock of hair at the top of his head. Certainly I would have remembered someone with so distinguished a feature! I truly had no idea who this creature was, but did not want to appear unsociable. He obviously thought that he knew me and his name seemed vaguely familiar. “Well, well! So, my old friend Lunki, eh? Has it – has it been a long time?”
“Far too long!” Lunki grinned, his
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p teeth glistening. He reached toward me “But that’s not important now that you’re here. Wonderful! It is simply wonderful!”
“Lunki, perhaps you can help me,” I said, pretty certain he couldn’t help me at all. “I seem to have misplaced my wife and – hey, where are we going?”
Lunki had taken my hand and was dragging me across the top of the hill. “No time to waste,” he said, his wings flailing in the wind. “You’ve got to meet the right people – make the right connections – and then you’ll really learn something; you’ll learn a secret, Thux. There’s nothing more powerful than a secret!”
He pointed over to a pond of water among the hills and then dragged me in its direction. As we got closer, I saw that there was a glass tube sticking out of the water on one side. One long plane of metal ran down its length twisted into spirals around a central shaft. At the exposed end, the shaft was connected to a large crank and handle. It was a fascinating arrangement, one that I had not seen before.
“Beginnings and endings,” Lunki said with a broad grin. “What will happen, Thux? Why don’t you see what will happen?”
I nodded and stepped up to the crank. I turned it one way and watched the spirals of metal turn inside the glass cylinder. Nothing happened so I tried turning it the other way.
To my astonishment, the water was being drawn up the tube by the spirals of metal. The more I turned the higher it rose until it began spilling out the top of the glass. I was elated, turning the handle faster and faster until suddenly I realized that no more water was coming out and the pond itself was empty.
Lunki danced gleefully and flitted uncertainly over the now-dry bed of the pond. There he found a pair of leathery wings like his own. He bounced through the air back to me, and when he handed them to me, I suddenly found that they were sprouting from my back like his.
Then the wind caught Lunki’s wings, dragging us both into the air. We tumbled high over the grassy fields, bouncing across two other hilltops before sprawling onto the grassy crest of a third.
A tall creature approached us from the base of the hill. His face was covered by a mask in the form of a highly unusual goblin, and his build was extraordinarily tall and emaciated for any of the goblin kind I knew.
“Lunki,” I asked. “Who – or what – is this?”
The figure only held up his hand and covered its mouth. Whatever it was, it appeared to be in no hurry to speak to me. Instead it pointed away from the hill toward a distant mountain.
“He is one of the ancient titans,” Lunki whispered loudly in my ears. “He is showing us the way! He will lead us to our destiny!”
It was then that I noticed the wind had grown into a terrible gale. It blew about me with great force but in silence. As I watched, the cogs and gears embedded in the hillside rose up, carried by the silent wind. They floated away from the hilltop, born by this strange breeze in the direction that this masked titan-creature pointed.
I thought of my own leathery wings. They stretched awkwardly from my back, and I understood the difficulty that Lunki was having with them. The rushing wind picked both Lunki and me up to wheel among the flying cogs, gears and pulleys in the sky. I couldn’t help but smile as I floated on my own upon this river of air over forests and foothills until I came at last to soar among the craggy peaks of impossibly tall mountains. Lunki, the old friend that I still could not remember, tumbled along side me, his laughter bright over the roar of the wind.
A valley appeared between those mountains below us and at the sight of it, I was filled with dread. I tried to move away, to fly in some other direction but the currents of the air were stronger than I and my wings were new and unfamiliar to me. The various device parts that floated with me were spinning down toward that valley and both Lunki and I with them, our speed faster and faster until the floor of the valley seemed to rushed up at me.
I closed my eyes. I could hear nothing but terrible wind and Lunki’s hysterical laughter...
Conversations with Thux the First
Book I, pg. 53
* * * * *
Thux
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olted awake, sitting upright with a start. “Where are we? What is this place?”
“Quiet, dearest,” Phylish said, rubbing a large bump on her husband’s head, one that threatened by the moment to grow even larger. “We’re still in the secret laboratory – well, what’s left of the secret laboratory.”
“What happened?” Thux said, blinking.
“You released your device and it landed on your head.”
“It didn’t work?”
Phylish shook her head.
“Well,” Thux said blinking furiously as he tried to focus. “at least I’m back.”
“Back?” Phylish “Back from where?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” he replied. “But I think I may have seen Ag’nar.”
“God of the wandering goblins?” Phylish eyebrows beetled. “Oh, you poor dear, it must have hit you harder than I thought!”
“SILENCE!” boomed a voice through the shattered laboratory. “KNEEL BEFORE YOUR CONQUERER!”
Phylish and Thux turned as one toward the voice.
It came from the gigantic face of the Titan, still peering through the broken wall.
“Do you think its talking to us?” Phylish asked, her voice a full octave higher than normal.
“I believe it is,” Thux replied in awe.
“KNEEL BEFORE YOUR CONQUERER OR DIE!” came the thunderous voice from the motionless, blank face.
“What should we do, Thux?” Phylish asked.
The wizard shrugged. “Kneel?”
Phylish nodded. “That seems appropriate.”
They both carefully knelt facing the rusting face of the titan, Thux carefully removing his official wizard’s hat and holding it in both hands in front of him.
Something green dropped from the nose of the titan, then stood. It stepped confidently toward them, waving a short stick in its hand as it approached.
Thux’s
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aw dropped. He knew he would hear words about it later from his wife, assuming they lived that long, but he could not help himself. The young goblin woman that stood before them had long, perfectly pointed ears set off with fiery red eyes sunken back under a heavy brow of mottled green skin. Her round, firm pot belly was touched by long, thin sagging breasts all held loosely under a linked-armor vest tinted green. She was the most exquisitely beautiful goblin Thux has ever seen.
“Who are you,” he managed to say.
“Are you Thux? The so-called Wizard of Jilik?” the woman said, her croaking deep voice the embodiment of goblin seduction.
“Uh-huh.”
“Consider yourselves both the
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ust spoils of war,” the woman replied coldly. “You are now my prisoners.”
“And by whom do we en
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oy the pleasure of being captured?” Phylish asked with barely contained annoyance.
The stunningly beautiful goblin stuck out her pot belly, the daylight shining into the room from behind the face of the titan illuminating her as she struck a suitably dramatic pose. “I am Lithbet, Warrior Princess of Dong Maha
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Mimic, King of the Goblins.”
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+ Main Menu + Visions + Creators + Worlds + Tales + Bazaar + Village
(Wherein Caelith, son of Galen Arvad, leads a quest in search of the lost Rhamasian capital of Calsandria.)
The snow had stopped in the night, its clouds driven off by a stiff wind from the north-east, bringing a frigid, stark dawn to the Hrurdan Pass. None of this deterred Jorgan from his determination, for Caelith found him awake and busying himself for travel as the snows beyond the cavern entrance brightened with the dawning light.
Caelith quickly insured that none of them would be left wanting before his dogged brother. He and Kenth quickly roused the company, supervising their refit into heavier, lined cloaks and fir leggings, hats and mitts from the stores on the torusk. They were nearly finished with the chore when Caelith noticed the young girl staring at him with huge, questioning eyes.
He returned her gaze for a moment then, finding her stare uncomfortable turned his attention to her own costume. She had found a fur lined cloak which almost fit her, though its ends dragged somewhat in the snow. Her own rough tunic, however, had frayed ends that were, in contrast, too short for her. He could see her hands curled in against the cold, shaking as they held the long pole by which she guided the torusk by its tusks.
“I’m sorry I’ve put you through this,” Caelith said to the waif. “You haven’t done anything to deserve this.”
The girl said nothing in reply.
Caelith smiled ruefully, glancing down at his own gloves. They were soft brown leather, lined, with luxuriously deep cuffs. “Well – Anji, isn’t it? – well, Anji, these may be a little large for you but I think they’ll keep you warm.”
He held out the gloves to her, but she took a hesitant step back.
“It’s all right,” he insisted with a smile. “They were always too small for me and I have others. Please?”
The girl hesitated for a moment, then reached out and took the gloves without a word. She quickly pulled them over her hands, the cuffs nearly reaching down to her elbows, then looked back up into Caelith’s face with her large, watery eyes.
He could hear Kenth calling for him, his voice getting closer by the moment.
“You’re most welcome,” Caelith said to Anji with sad smile before he turned. “Yes, Master Kenth.”
“It’s that Jorgan, sire,” Kenth said, shaking his head. “He’s given his morning pronouncement and started off to the south. Mistress Eryn took off trailing him but we’ll lose site of her, too, before long.”
Caelith cleared his throat. “We’ll catch them both soon enough in this snow. Tell Beligrad to choose five companions and set out after our guide at once. Then have Phelig get whoever he needs to organize this gear and secure it to this torusk. You get the rest of the company moving and I’ll – I’ll try and get our dignitaries packed up as well.”
“Aye, sire,” Kenth nodded. “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?”
“I certainly hope not!” Caelith bellowed as he moved quickly toward the next cave.
“Now where are we?” Eryn said, her words carried into the chill afternoon air on white puffs of labored breath.
“Why ask me,” Caelith returned, blowing across his achingly cold hands. “You’re the one on speaking terms with our guide.”
They stood knee-deep in the snows at the crest of a ridge outcropping. To their left, rose a towering peak whose face curved around a deep draw far below. Along the face of the mountain, a single line cut through the pristine snow with a lone dark figure at its head.
Lucien pointed. “It looks like he’s making for that deep cut to the south. I say, if I had my druthers I’d walk along this mountain, too, rather than go down to the bottom and have to climb all the way back up.”
Longer but safer.
Caelith blinked. The words had been quiet yet distinct in his mind as though someone had spoken them within his head. It must be the altitude, he though ruefully. He had heard of the Mountain Madness, and there were others of his own company that seemed to be a little slower in their reactions that he remembered them. He glanced back at the company behind him, awaiting his decision. “Well, to quote our guide, ‘This way.’ How about you, Cephas? Are you up to this?”
The dwarf was almost waist deep in the whiteness, his hair caked with ice. “Dwarf on a mountain er is! Watch Cephas and see if he passes yon Pir Priest eh?”
The dwarf pushed past Caelith, his squat body cutting a wider path across the steeply slanting snow. Caelith smiled and started along the path himself. It was a difficult position to be in; pushing down the new snows for those that followed although, he thought ruefully, not nearly as difficult as that of Jorgan or Cephas ahead of them.
The noon sky slanted further toward the west as they continued on their path. The going was slow and their lungs ached for air in their exertions. By mid-afternoon, they were nearly three quarters of the way to the deep cleft between the mountains and the far side of the mountain bowl looked to be only about a half mile before them. They had caught up with Jorgan and, their goal being obvious, the Inquisitas had agreed to allow the dwarf to go ahead of them and cut the trail.
Caelith looked back. Behind him, the rest of the company was spread out in single file along the long curve of the mountain face, the torusk and Anji in the rear pushing forward with the balance of their supplies. Directly behind him, Lucien, Eryn and Margrave trod along; the bard unusually silent.
“I am astonished, Margrave,” Caelith said haltingly, his breath labored in the thin air. “That you haven’t had anything to – to say in the last – mile. For a man who seems to know a – story about every rock – and tree along the way you can’t – you can’t possible find this area that boring.”
Margrave looked up suddenly, recognizing that he was being spoken to. ‘Oh, sorry – I’ve been composing a terribly tragic lyric about the Hrudan Pass.”
“Tragic?” Caelith scoffed but the voice within his head seemed to sound an alarm. He shook his head to be rid of it. “What is so tragic about snow? Perhaps frostbite is the subject of your-”
The sound of commotion down the line of march behind him suddenly drew Caelith’s attention. The line had broken in the middle, with several of his raiders scattered both up and down the slope, their weapons drawn. Several of them had raised their hands, their fingers splayed out as they appeared to be tapping into the deep magic. Their shouts echoed back across the hills, making their words muddled.
Caelith began pushing his way back toward the disturbance. “Quiet!” he shouted as he slogged through the deep snow back toward his scattered men. “Quiet I say!”
The shouting diminished slightly. Caelith felt as though he were moving with impossible slowness through the thick snow. “Kenth! What is it?”
“Don’t know, sire,” the lieutenant called back, his own weapon drawn.
“Something’s moving!” Lovich squawked, his voice breaking with his anxiety. “Something under the snow!”
Caelith looked down the face. Rivulets of snow slid straight down the slope from where the men had scattered, but these were impossibly crossed by long curving lines that disturbed the snowpack from just under the surface. In the afternoon light, flat against the snow, however, they were difficult to see. Caelith suddenly caught sight of the end of one of the lines, moving with incredible speed parallel to their own line of march and toward the end of the column.
“By the gods!” Caelith cried out. “What is that?”
“Snow-serpents,” Margrave answered sadly.
Jorgan, standing just beyond, suddenly paled. His eyes widened and his jaw set. “They never hunt before nightfall! They must be desperate.” He pushed his way back toward Caelith. “We’ve got to get everyone off the face! Now!”
Caelith turned to face his older brother. “There’s no cover here and it’s almost a half mile to that pass. We can’t possibly outrun these things, whatever they are. You take the lead group here and head for that cut. We’ll hold them here and...”
Suddenly the ripping line just under the snow turned abruptly toward the torusk. The great beast bellowed loudly, it’s thick, scaled legs churning at the snow. Caelith could see Anji trying desperately to calm the enormous creature.
In that instant the snow around the torusk exploded. Three hideous beasts flew upward around the torusk, attaching themselves to its neck, back and flank by sinking long, razor-sharp talons from its short but muscular forearms deep into the beasts flesh. The beast’s wide, powerful jaws gaped open, showing their long fangs. Thick, white fur ran from just behind their flattened heads down the length of their long, tapered bodies. They had no hind legs for they were not creatures of the land but of the snows and glacier lakes, their bodies flattening after their broad shoulders into a flat, articulated tail.
The torusk howled again, churning its legs backward in the snows as it lost its footing.
“Kill them!” Caelith shouted, his voice raw in the frozen air. “Raiders! Attack!”
The company broke ranks on the trail. Several charged the serpents directly, drawing their weapons. A cloud of ice shards flew from the hands of Tarin, who was up the slope from the Torusk and had a clear line for his mystic formation. Their keen edges lanced through the first of the serpents near the torusk’s throat, causing red stains to run down the monster’s fur. It pulled back its grotesque head, howling in pain.
Caelith drew his own weapon but a strong hand pulled him around. Jorgan stood slightly above him on the slope, his hand grasping Caelith’s shoulder. “We can’t do this here! We’ve got to get off the face!”
“Damn you, Jorgan! Those are our supplies!” Caelith shouted. Beyond Jorgan, he could see Eryn, her bow already releasing one of her arrows past their heads. “How long will we last out here without them?”
“Longer than if we die here and now,” Jorgan replied.
Caelith pulled his shoulder forcefully away from his brother’s grip as Eryn’s second arrow let fly. “I told you we’ve got to salvage those supplies ... now let me do my job!”
Caelith turned back. Eryn’s arrows had flown true; the second of the beasts had been pierced by them. It, too, howled then leaped away from the torusk, curving backward through the air as it plunged back into the slow. The arrows protruded from the surface as the beast ran in a circle under the surface around the back side of the torusk. The first serpent, still bleeding, launched itself over the torusks head, its talon claws reaching out for Phelig who was still charging forward. Caught by surprise, the raider tried to raise his sword in defense but the creature was too swift for him. Both Phelig and the serpent vanished under the snow in a violent flurry. In moments the snow where they entered was marred by a growing red stain.
“Follow them!” Caelith ordered. “Kenth! Get the company into a defensive circle!
Jorgan’s right. Caelith gritted his teeth, pushing through the snows, still too far from his own men. Get off the face. “Leave me alone!” he shouted at the voice in his head.
The rivulets in the snow began circling his warriors. The torusk beast was making its own trail, back up the slope and dragging the hapless Anji with it. The warriors seemed to have gotten the attention of the serpents, however, for they were ignoring the retreating beast for the time being.
Caelith was nearly there. Several of the men were already casting their mystical energies into the snow around them. The dull thud of their electric explosions illuminated the snow around them.
“Master Kenth, have the men aim ahead of...”
With a building roar, the snow began to move...
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