The Birth of Economics (25/09/08 - 2243 words)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stonefeather was lagging behind again. Quwik stopped and turned to watch
his friend come up. As Stonefeather approached he said,
‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘Nonsense!’ said the other smaller young man as he climbed a
dune, ‘This is a very good idea!’
Quwik shielded his eyes with the palm of his hand and looked along
the shore line. It was a sunny, but windy day. Up here on the dune
he was buffeted by the strong sea breeze. He laughed as he slid down the
sand into the shelter of between the dunes.
‘What do you see?’ asked Stonefeather.
Quwik regarded his friend’s solid features for a moment then
replied, ‘Nothing, just dunes for miles and miles. I can’t even see
our village any more. We are a good way from home.’
Stonefeather shuddered and hugged himself although it wasn’t cold.
He held his fishing spear in the crook of his elbow.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea’, he repeated eventually, ‘This
isn’t going to be like the caves.’
‘It will be fun! Listen, we walk until it gets dark. Camp. Eat our
fish..’ said Quwik as he held up two large fish he had strung over
his shoulder, ‘Then walk some more and if what they say is true we
will find the village along the shore sometime in the next day.’
‘Yes Quwik’, grunted Stonefeather as they walked on, ‘The village
where the head hunters live.’
Quwik laughed gleefully, ‘Think of it! Heads. It makes me shudder!
How many do you think they will have? So many?’ and he held out
his hands to show all his fingers.
‘I don’t know.’ grumbled his friend.
The next day they found the settlement, just as it had been
described to them by the travelling man that had come to their
village in the spring. Another village, think of that! Quwik and
Stonefeather crouched behind a dune and looked down on the roofs
of the huts.
‘It looks just like our place.’ whispered Stonefeather although
in truth there was no need to. They were far away and the wind
blew away all their words.
‘Yes. But there are no fishing nets hanging to dry, or spears
stuck in the sand. I don’t see any heads either, we will have
to get closer.’
‘No!’ gasped Stonefeather grabbing his arm, ‘We have seen the
village. We can go home now.’
‘We came to see the heads, not the village!’ cried Quwik,
pulling away his arm.
He then scrambled up and over the dune and quickly hid in the
shadow of the next. Stonefeather sighed and crouching low
followed his friend.
‘If they catch us they will kills us!’ hissed Stonefeather
as he came up beside Quick.
‘I know, I know, but I just have to see!’ was the whispered
reply.
‘You are too curious for your own good.’
Quwik said nothing, but continued to edge closer to the head
hunter settlement.
They could clearly see the people coming and going in between
the huts now. They seemed dirtier and hairier than the people
of their own village. Quwik and Stonefeather were fishermen,
like everyone else they knew, and spent a lot of time in the
sea. Quwik couldn’t see what these people did for food, but
the traveller had told them they hunted game in the forest.
As they watched something started to happen. The women
gathered outside the largest of the huts and men started to
walk into the village from another path behind it, going
around the short wooden circumference fence and entering
the dwelling. There was the sounds of chanting, then some
of the men exited the large hut, carrying things that
looked like..
‘Oh!’ gasped Quwik, ‘Look at that!’
Stonefeather groaned and put his hands over his mouth.
Each man was carrying a human head. They began to pile them
up in the centre of the village beside the large hut. The
women began to ululate.
‘Right, I’ve had enough of this.’ said Stonefeather and
turned to go.
‘No wait!’ Quwik whispered as loud as he dared, ‘I want to
see what happens.. oh no!’
He’d just seen a dirty hairy man coming along the dunes
towards them. They made eye contact at the same time. The
man seemed to be startled and angry, a moment later he was
shaking his spear and shouting towards the village.
‘Run!’ was Quwik’s reaction, he was soon running as fast
as he could back along the beach, Stonefeather doing his
best to keep up, their bare feet kicking up the sand as
they went.
‘Look what you did!’ gasped Stonefeather as they ran,
‘Now they want to add us to their collection!’
They ran and ran, and every so often Quwik would look
over his shoulder. It didn’t look good.
‘How many are following us?’ cried Stonefeather, not
wanting to lose any speed in turning his head.
‘All of them!’
They were getting closer now too, some of the men were
obviously lean and fast hunters, used to running down
prey, and were ahead of the main pack.
‘We’ll never make it back! Our village is too far away’,
groaned Quwik, but then he said, ‘Wait! I have an idea!’
‘It was ideas from your head that got us into this mess!’
croaked Stonefeather, he was starting to run out of breath.
‘Just follow me!’
Quwik changed course and ran towards the forest. After a
while they entered its shady pine needle covered environs
and found an animal trail to follow. They ducked under
branches and jumped over streams, the path leading them
up towards the mountains.
Climbing ever higher, the pace was beginning to slow
everyone down.
Stonefeather panted for breath and said,
‘The caves are around here somewhere.’
Quwik was equally exhausted but managed to say, ‘Yes,
and the cave people.’
Stonefeather was confused and replied, ‘The cave people
are just as unfriendly as the head hunters.’
‘Exactly!’
Eventually they reached a cave entrance. Quwik leapt
into the mouth of the opening and made several loud
whooping noises, then dived behind a bush between two
trees. Stonefeather flopped down beside him, and then
burrowing into the undergrowth turned to watch the cave.
‘You are doubling our trouble Quwik!’ he groaned as several
spear carrying cave folk came out of the entrance. They
were covered in white powder markings that made them look
very fearsome. They also wore colourful looking necklaces
and bangles that sparkled in the sunlight.
A few moments later the first of the head hunters arrived,
but stopped running up when they saw the cave dwellers. As
more arrived on both sides, they began to call and shout at
each other, but no one seemed to be willing to step forward
and break the stand off.
Quwik and Stonefeather were somewhere in the middle,
unobserved by both sides.
The cave people shouted in their language and shook their
spears. In turn the head hunters shouted in their guttural
tongue and shook their spears. This carried on for some minutes
until the head hunters, en masse, began to edge down the hillside.
The cave dwellers didn’t seem to want to follow them and just
stood at the cave entrance, standing on tip toe to watch the
head hunters leave.
When all seemed quiet, the cave dwellers retreated back into
the darkness of their home. A time after that Stonefeather
whispered to Quwik,
‘How did you know that would work?’
‘I didn’t!’
‘When we came here last time, there was no one here.’
‘Yes, but we saw signs that they had been. Perhaps they didn’t
notice us because you were too scared to enter the cave and
we went home so soon.’
‘Perhaps... well, let’s go home now ok? I’ve had enough for
today!’
A day later Quwik sat outside his hut in the sand dunes and
watched the fishermen bringing in their nets, then he
watched the women gut and hang the fish to smoke. An idea
began to form in his head.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Stonefeather as he sat
down in the sand beside his friend.
‘I’m just thinking. Those cave dwellers were wearing things
around their necks and on their wrists. Golden coloured and
sparkly red and green like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’
‘So?’
‘Well, that’s wealth isn’t it? I mean proper wealth.’
‘Like having a lot of fish?’
‘More than that. I mean, how many fish would you give for
a little red sparkly stone?’
‘Humph!’ grunted Stonefeather, ‘Nothing if I was hungry.’
‘But say you had a hundred fish. How many for a sparkly
stone?’
‘I see what you are saying. Well, maybe ten...’ Stonefeather
replied uncertainly, holding up all his fingers.
‘Exactly!’ exclaimed Quwik.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Instead of going out into the sea all day for the rest of
our lives to catch fish we could.. er.. sell some fish to
the cave dwellers. Maybe we sell them five fish for one
stone.. then .. we sell the stone in our village for ten
fish and..’
‘You have some more fish than you started with. But it seems
like a lot of work for just one hand of fish.’
Quwik scratched his head, ‘But if we do it for lots of stones
and lots of fish.’
‘Yes, but soon everyone here will have all the stones they
want.’
‘Maybe. Maybe. Then we would have to .. er .. I don’t know.’
said Quwik waving his hands, ‘Expand. The more people involved,
the more each individual has to offer all the others. Everyone
has more than they need of one thing and less of what they need
of others.’
Stonefeather considered the idea of opening trade negotiations
with the head hunters then said,
‘You’re crazy.’
‘They may take heads, but they also hunt the jungle. They have
meat, probably lots of it. And there must be other tribes further
up the beach that they raid because they never come here for
their trophies.’
‘Maybe. Probably. You’re still crazy though.’
Quwik may have been crazy, but a year later he was the man
behind the roaring trade his village was making in fish, which
was sold to the cave people in return for their well crafted
jewellery and precious stones.
Ten years later he was the head man of his village which was
the centre of trade up and down the coast for dozens of miles.
Quwik was older now and was what could be considered a wealthy
man.
One day the traveller came once more to their village and Quwik
hailed him as he arrived,
‘You again!’ he called cheerfully, ‘I wondered if you would ever
come again.’
The old man leaned on his staff and said,
‘Yes, I was passing this way. I thought I might go and see the
man I had heard all these stories about. This wealthy man.’
Quwik beamed and held out his hands, ‘Come to my hut and take some
food. In truth I have you to thank for all of my fortune. If you
hadn’t told me of the head hunter village them my youthful curiosity
would never had led me there. I would have never of disturbed
the cave dwellers and I would have never of seen their shiny
stones. I would still be a fisherman I expect!’
As the old man entered Quwik’s large hut, he pulled his long
white beard and replied,
‘There is nothing wrong with being a fisherman young man.’
Quwik laughed and said, ‘You sound like Stonefeather.’
‘He is a wise man then. Tell me, I know you must think a lot of
the future, but do you ever think of the past?’
Quwik shrugged and sat down. One of his young daughters served
them some drinks.
‘I can’t say that I do.’
‘How came your tribe to the place?’
‘Well, the old men of the village tell stories of an exodus. Looking
for new places to live. Crossing the sea...This is a new place. There
were no men here when my tribe arrived. Or so they say.’
‘I’m sure they do. A new place. So few men in the world and so much
land, it is no wonder that so many tribes I meet on my travels think
that they are the only men in existence!’
Quwik smiled and the old man continued,
‘You are changing that though. I am not surprised. Mankind can not
be held back from its destiny, but perhaps it would interest you to
know that our fathers are not the first to walk these shores.’
‘No?’
‘I’ve been deep inland. I have seen things that would make you wonder.
Unnatural things and ancient things. I have talked to men that tell
the strangest of tales.’
‘What do they tell?’
‘One of the things that they say I am here to relate to you. It is
a warning. A long time ago, there were men here and they too made
trade with each other and they grew rich. But one day they grew too
confident and were destroyed utterly by their own hubris. It starts
with a handful of fish for a ruby and ends when nations starve
because the economy grows so top heavy that the whole thing collapses.
We are all that remains of a global society that forgot one of
nature’s fundamental laws.’
Quwik leaned forward, ‘What’s that?’
‘You can’t eat money!’
Sunday 30 June 2013
Monday 24 June 2013
(G169 21/06/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF(GM) , AP)
(G169 21/06/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF(GM) , AP)
DAY 207 (4 Marpenoth)(October) continued ...
Rather dismayed Fenrir suggested they try the OJB. As they travelled the secret
routes that Werner knew they questioned her about Darknessdeep and she told them
a little of its social structure;
'De Rosan is the lord, he has courtiers and retainers, servants and slaves. The
other lords of Darknessdeep are as evil and corrupt as him. Then there are the
powerful wizards and clerics that have come to an agreement with him. Only the
evil prosper though. You then have the guards and watchmen, who are all undead
now.
And at the bottom of the heap you have the citizens. Somehow we get by, scraping
a living from the ruins. A very small minority of the citizens plot against
De Rosan and are known as the resistance. I am a member. Oh, wait!'
She had spotted something. Arcing across the sky was what looked like a giant
fireball. As it grew closer they could see it was a pit fiend, all aflame,
flying high above.
It was 'Skinner' she said, a pit fiend that liked to hunt the people of Darknessdeep
for sport. His pack would be nearby.
She sent them back and then went forward to lure the hunting pack away.
'Come get me, you swine! Aieee!!'
Fenrir and Corum ran south, but were attacked by a horde of lemures, poorly formed
devil-things, gibbering and foul. Fenrir blasted away, sending blood and limbs
flying while Corum held them back as best he could with his sword.
When they had managed to disengage from the pack and run, they left over twenty
of them dead. Corum was badly scratched up and they were both covered in blood
and gore.
They headed in what direction felt like south west. Fenrir was invisible but
someone spotted Corum and called him over to his shelter.
'It is not safe to wander the streets like that alone.' he cautioned and gave
his name as Zander.
When asked where they were from the said 'Skullport' and in return asked if he
could take them to the OJB.
He knew where the Marketplace was and was persuaded to take them there. Fenrir
asked more questions about Darknessdeep and was told that some of the sea was
inside the barrier, although it was now a sea of blood.
Fenrir asked him about the 'Legend of Fenrir and Corum' and was told that Zander
considered it just a myth, something that people with no hope clung to - that
some day they would return to destroy De Rosan and change the city back to
Waterdeep.
Zander was too young to remember Waterdeep and had began to think that it had
never existed.
The OJB was a ruin, but they spent some time digging about and found the entrance
to the crypts. Zander lit a small lantern and they went down into it.
The were greeted by an old man's voice nervously telling them to go away, but it
turned out to be Cavu, who, as he explained, had been hiding down here for most
of the last fifty years.
He'd been surviving on snails and spiders, but the genies had been a 'great comfort'
he told them lecherously.
Fenrir and Corum then went to speak to the genies, who were not inside their
lamps and were just hanging about. It wasn't too hard for the genies to persuade
them to have some fun, so Fenrir paired off with Meshnosha and Corum with Enlessa!
When they were done, the genies said 'Now you must leave!'
The rest of that day the spent taking turns in opening up one of the sealed rooms
with a crowbar.
Zander left them at this point to go and search for supplies for his 'people.'
DAY 208 (5 Marpenoth)(October)
That night, among a lot of long ramblings Cavu said
'There is a way out. I don't know what it is, but it is in the City of the
Dead.'
The next morning, after some sleep and a rat-in-a-bun ration Fenrir went to talk
to the genies again and asked
'Can you leave this plane?'
They said they didn't want to talk about it. He then cast Detect Magic, but found
that everything around him was showing up as magical.
He then went into the opened up room and tried to summon Bnurgstickslackskin but
nothing happened. He began to think that the barrier was blocking all planar
travel.
They took a rough bearing and tried to head northward to find Kreenan again.
As they walked along a hoarse voice cried,
'Citizens! Remain where you are. This is the watch!'
They ran for it though and lightning bolts were shot at them.
Skeletal figures were seen silhouetted against the ruins every time they shot
from the long staffs they carried.
They tried to hide, but were spotted and attacked again. Corum then told Fenrir
to fly away invisibly and he would try to get away by himself.
Fenrir flew straight up and then flew away as the landscape was lit up by more
lightning. He also spotted a double squad of watchmen taking a prisoner away
although it was not Corum.
He followed them and they went towards the mountain, then up a hill to
a tall black building that stood alone on the hillside. The doors opened and
the prisoner was lead inside. The doors boomed shut behind them.
Fenrir tried to get back to Kreenan once more but became lost. As he flew about
he noted that the skies were far from empty. Dark flapping things went about
on errands of their own and larger fiery things flew further up. He stuck as
low to the ground as he dared.
It took him all of the rest of the day to make his way back to the OJB where
he fell asleep once more in Cavu's chamber.
DAY 209 (6 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir awoke and ate some more of his diminishing rations. It wasn't until
the evening that Corum appeared, badly injured. Cavu used his bardic magic
to heal him a little.
After talking together they decided that it was best for Fenrir to do the
scouting by himself since Corum was a sitting duck out on the streets, so they
arranged a guiding light to be set up close to the OJB and Fenrir went out
by himself.
He spend a long time searching about, but without success.
When he started to feel sleepy he found a bolt hole and hit in it.
DAY 210 (7 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir awoke and ate his second to last ration. He then spent many hours
looking for Kreenan. He found his way to the ruins of the TSV and re-traced
his way again and again until he eventually found a door that looked familiar.
He was in luck and down some steps into a cellar he found the entrance to
Kreenan's hideout.
He talked to the cleric for a while. Kreenan told him he had enough materials
for one resurrection only and was not going to use it on Werner until he was
sure it was not needed elsewhere.
He also told Fenrir his best method of getting around the city was with a guide.
Someone who was used to always travelling in near total darkness or had some
kind of night vision.
Kreenan then gave him some more rations and introduced him to a young man
called Anger. Before he left he asked if someone could be sent down to the
OJB to bring Corum up.
Outside once more, Fenrir asked Anger to take him to where Maaril now lived.
Anger nodded silently then led the young warlock through secret tunnels
and hidden paths to a large and lopsided looking house.
Some of the windows were lit, so Fenrir left Anger hidden nearby and went
for an invisible fly around.
In one window he saw a young man that bore a passing resemblance to Maaril.
Perhaps his son, but the man closed the shutters when Fenrir tapped on the
window.
Another window has broken glass so he snuck into the room. It was large
with a pentagram and a corpse in its middle. It was a ground floor room
of flagstones. Once more Fenrir cast Detect Magic and once more everything
about him showed up as magical. He concentrated and detected four auras coming
off everything.
He began to explore the twisted and dark dusty corridors of Maaril's Nightmare
Mansion.
In the next room he found a dead old lady lying in a bed while ivy grew in big
bushy clumps in every corner.
Down some stairs to another level he found a sitting room and found a magical
dagger on the mantelpiece. Next to a carved wooden face there was a button.
He pressed it and some fire sprites leapt out of the fire.
Fenrir flew over to the corner of the room and hit. The fire sprites then crept
back into the fireplace.
A trapdoor had also opened, but he decided not to see what was down there. The
room next to the sitting room was a study and as he looked down at a bit of
paper on the desk letters magically appeared which read:
'Head first and naked.'
He searched the shelves in here and found a silver pentagram inside a false book
that had writing on it that told the wearer of this device would have 'power over
devil worshippers.'
Searching the room further he found a secret set of steps that lead to a dungeon
were four people were being held. He was invisible though and they did not see
him so he went back up again leaving them in captivity.
He retraced his steps to a set of exterior doors that were at the end of the corridor
that the sitting room door lead to. Opening them though he saw a goat-headed headed devil
so he quickly shut it again!
The door across from the sitting room lead to a kitchen where he found some keys.
A pantry held some sort of ghoulish being, but he left it unmolested.
Another set of steps lead down into what seemed like a changing room and just
as he was wondering what to do a group of eight men came in and silently changed
into white robes and donned goat-headed masks.
The left the room and Fenrir followed them into a large cave. A woman was dragged
in and placed on the alter in the middle of the cave. The leader of the robed men
then plunged a dagger into her heart.
The leader looked up and then removed his mask. It was Maaril! But he also saw
Fenrir and shouted,
'I see you!'
Fenrir held up the pentagram he had found which seemed to stop them from coming
any closer to him.
He tried to talk to Maaril, but the man had raving red eyes and was evidently crazier
than a crate of stirges. Fenrir retraced his steps as quickly as he could and left
the mansion.
Once he had found Anger, they headed back to Kreenan's house where he got some
rest.
DAY 211 (8 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir awoke and was happy to find that Corum had made it back to the hideout
that morning. He was still not in great shape exactly, but a bit more healthy
than last time he'd seen him.
DAY 207 (4 Marpenoth)(October) continued ...
Rather dismayed Fenrir suggested they try the OJB. As they travelled the secret
routes that Werner knew they questioned her about Darknessdeep and she told them
a little of its social structure;
'De Rosan is the lord, he has courtiers and retainers, servants and slaves. The
other lords of Darknessdeep are as evil and corrupt as him. Then there are the
powerful wizards and clerics that have come to an agreement with him. Only the
evil prosper though. You then have the guards and watchmen, who are all undead
now.
And at the bottom of the heap you have the citizens. Somehow we get by, scraping
a living from the ruins. A very small minority of the citizens plot against
De Rosan and are known as the resistance. I am a member. Oh, wait!'
She had spotted something. Arcing across the sky was what looked like a giant
fireball. As it grew closer they could see it was a pit fiend, all aflame,
flying high above.
It was 'Skinner' she said, a pit fiend that liked to hunt the people of Darknessdeep
for sport. His pack would be nearby.
She sent them back and then went forward to lure the hunting pack away.
'Come get me, you swine! Aieee!!'
Fenrir and Corum ran south, but were attacked by a horde of lemures, poorly formed
devil-things, gibbering and foul. Fenrir blasted away, sending blood and limbs
flying while Corum held them back as best he could with his sword.
When they had managed to disengage from the pack and run, they left over twenty
of them dead. Corum was badly scratched up and they were both covered in blood
and gore.
They headed in what direction felt like south west. Fenrir was invisible but
someone spotted Corum and called him over to his shelter.
'It is not safe to wander the streets like that alone.' he cautioned and gave
his name as Zander.
When asked where they were from the said 'Skullport' and in return asked if he
could take them to the OJB.
He knew where the Marketplace was and was persuaded to take them there. Fenrir
asked more questions about Darknessdeep and was told that some of the sea was
inside the barrier, although it was now a sea of blood.
Fenrir asked him about the 'Legend of Fenrir and Corum' and was told that Zander
considered it just a myth, something that people with no hope clung to - that
some day they would return to destroy De Rosan and change the city back to
Waterdeep.
Zander was too young to remember Waterdeep and had began to think that it had
never existed.
The OJB was a ruin, but they spent some time digging about and found the entrance
to the crypts. Zander lit a small lantern and they went down into it.
The were greeted by an old man's voice nervously telling them to go away, but it
turned out to be Cavu, who, as he explained, had been hiding down here for most
of the last fifty years.
He'd been surviving on snails and spiders, but the genies had been a 'great comfort'
he told them lecherously.
Fenrir and Corum then went to speak to the genies, who were not inside their
lamps and were just hanging about. It wasn't too hard for the genies to persuade
them to have some fun, so Fenrir paired off with Meshnosha and Corum with Enlessa!
When they were done, the genies said 'Now you must leave!'
The rest of that day the spent taking turns in opening up one of the sealed rooms
with a crowbar.
Zander left them at this point to go and search for supplies for his 'people.'
DAY 208 (5 Marpenoth)(October)
That night, among a lot of long ramblings Cavu said
'There is a way out. I don't know what it is, but it is in the City of the
Dead.'
The next morning, after some sleep and a rat-in-a-bun ration Fenrir went to talk
to the genies again and asked
'Can you leave this plane?'
They said they didn't want to talk about it. He then cast Detect Magic, but found
that everything around him was showing up as magical.
He then went into the opened up room and tried to summon Bnurgstickslackskin but
nothing happened. He began to think that the barrier was blocking all planar
travel.
They took a rough bearing and tried to head northward to find Kreenan again.
As they walked along a hoarse voice cried,
'Citizens! Remain where you are. This is the watch!'
They ran for it though and lightning bolts were shot at them.
Skeletal figures were seen silhouetted against the ruins every time they shot
from the long staffs they carried.
They tried to hide, but were spotted and attacked again. Corum then told Fenrir
to fly away invisibly and he would try to get away by himself.
Fenrir flew straight up and then flew away as the landscape was lit up by more
lightning. He also spotted a double squad of watchmen taking a prisoner away
although it was not Corum.
He followed them and they went towards the mountain, then up a hill to
a tall black building that stood alone on the hillside. The doors opened and
the prisoner was lead inside. The doors boomed shut behind them.
Fenrir tried to get back to Kreenan once more but became lost. As he flew about
he noted that the skies were far from empty. Dark flapping things went about
on errands of their own and larger fiery things flew further up. He stuck as
low to the ground as he dared.
It took him all of the rest of the day to make his way back to the OJB where
he fell asleep once more in Cavu's chamber.
DAY 209 (6 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir awoke and ate some more of his diminishing rations. It wasn't until
the evening that Corum appeared, badly injured. Cavu used his bardic magic
to heal him a little.
After talking together they decided that it was best for Fenrir to do the
scouting by himself since Corum was a sitting duck out on the streets, so they
arranged a guiding light to be set up close to the OJB and Fenrir went out
by himself.
He spend a long time searching about, but without success.
When he started to feel sleepy he found a bolt hole and hit in it.
DAY 210 (7 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir awoke and ate his second to last ration. He then spent many hours
looking for Kreenan. He found his way to the ruins of the TSV and re-traced
his way again and again until he eventually found a door that looked familiar.
He was in luck and down some steps into a cellar he found the entrance to
Kreenan's hideout.
He talked to the cleric for a while. Kreenan told him he had enough materials
for one resurrection only and was not going to use it on Werner until he was
sure it was not needed elsewhere.
He also told Fenrir his best method of getting around the city was with a guide.
Someone who was used to always travelling in near total darkness or had some
kind of night vision.
Kreenan then gave him some more rations and introduced him to a young man
called Anger. Before he left he asked if someone could be sent down to the
OJB to bring Corum up.
Outside once more, Fenrir asked Anger to take him to where Maaril now lived.
Anger nodded silently then led the young warlock through secret tunnels
and hidden paths to a large and lopsided looking house.
Some of the windows were lit, so Fenrir left Anger hidden nearby and went
for an invisible fly around.
In one window he saw a young man that bore a passing resemblance to Maaril.
Perhaps his son, but the man closed the shutters when Fenrir tapped on the
window.
Another window has broken glass so he snuck into the room. It was large
with a pentagram and a corpse in its middle. It was a ground floor room
of flagstones. Once more Fenrir cast Detect Magic and once more everything
about him showed up as magical. He concentrated and detected four auras coming
off everything.
He began to explore the twisted and dark dusty corridors of Maaril's Nightmare
Mansion.
In the next room he found a dead old lady lying in a bed while ivy grew in big
bushy clumps in every corner.
Down some stairs to another level he found a sitting room and found a magical
dagger on the mantelpiece. Next to a carved wooden face there was a button.
He pressed it and some fire sprites leapt out of the fire.
Fenrir flew over to the corner of the room and hit. The fire sprites then crept
back into the fireplace.
A trapdoor had also opened, but he decided not to see what was down there. The
room next to the sitting room was a study and as he looked down at a bit of
paper on the desk letters magically appeared which read:
'Head first and naked.'
He searched the shelves in here and found a silver pentagram inside a false book
that had writing on it that told the wearer of this device would have 'power over
devil worshippers.'
Searching the room further he found a secret set of steps that lead to a dungeon
were four people were being held. He was invisible though and they did not see
him so he went back up again leaving them in captivity.
He retraced his steps to a set of exterior doors that were at the end of the corridor
that the sitting room door lead to. Opening them though he saw a goat-headed headed devil
so he quickly shut it again!
The door across from the sitting room lead to a kitchen where he found some keys.
A pantry held some sort of ghoulish being, but he left it unmolested.
Another set of steps lead down into what seemed like a changing room and just
as he was wondering what to do a group of eight men came in and silently changed
into white robes and donned goat-headed masks.
The left the room and Fenrir followed them into a large cave. A woman was dragged
in and placed on the alter in the middle of the cave. The leader of the robed men
then plunged a dagger into her heart.
The leader looked up and then removed his mask. It was Maaril! But he also saw
Fenrir and shouted,
'I see you!'
Fenrir held up the pentagram he had found which seemed to stop them from coming
any closer to him.
He tried to talk to Maaril, but the man had raving red eyes and was evidently crazier
than a crate of stirges. Fenrir retraced his steps as quickly as he could and left
the mansion.
Once he had found Anger, they headed back to Kreenan's house where he got some
rest.
DAY 211 (8 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir awoke and was happy to find that Corum had made it back to the hideout
that morning. He was still not in great shape exactly, but a bit more healthy
than last time he'd seen him.
Sunday 23 June 2013
(G168 14/06/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF(GM) , AP)
(G168 14/06/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF(GM) , AP)
DAY 204 (1 Marpenoth)(October) cont ...
Fenrir re-read the Logos paying particular attention to the bits about applying it
to a living creature. His plan was to put it on Cavefoot somehow.
He was rather stumped though as to how to go from there. Nestoone suggested he
talked to Bnurgstickslackskin.
Fenrir left the HGV and flew over to the roof of the TSV. Here he waited.
DAY 205 (2 Marpenoth)(October)
At two o'clock in the morning a gargoyle flapped down from the night sky and
said,
'Need a lift?'
'No thanks' was the reply 'Just take this message to Maaril.'
The message read:
''GDR identified, there is a plan underfoot, could really use your help, come to OJB'
The gargoyle took it and flew off.
Fenrir then flew a few miles north of the city, far enough away to be away from
the remaining camp fires of the or horde. The landscape was burnt and ravaged
and shrouded in smoke but he found a suitable place to land that was quiet and
desolate.
He said the summoning phrase ('Hello dear, you're home early!') and in a cloud
of sulphurous smoke and with a crack of thunder Bnurgstickslackskin appeared.
Fenrir was rather shaken but managed to find his tongue and speak to the demon.
Bnurgstickslackskin seemed to none too bothered by what was going on saying
'I have everything under control! Mwah-hah! Tell me his name!'
Fenrir answered 'Redraven' and persuaded the demon to come to the HGV at
seven o'clock that night in the shape of Nurga Namcali.
After that he flew back to the city and the OJB, then the HGV where he told
them
'An unusual expert will help. She come later.'
At four in the morning he returned to the OJB and went to bed, sleeping
until noon.
When he left he left an envelope addressed to 'M' and it read;
''
If we don't return before 7pm then meet us at Adarbrent. pass phrase
'monkey butter'
''
Fenrir then met up with Corum, Nestoone and Alduin and went to Tespergates.
They noticed that a fighter type fell in a midden behind them but decided
not to investigate. Fenrir had worked out a mysterious strangers seemed to
be following them and didn't like others doing it.
At Tespergates Lady Tesper met them saying
'Good afternoon gentlemen'
Fenrir got straight to the point
'We have the location of De Rosan. we have a plan, but need assistance.
I've also located Maaril. De Rosan is Redraven.'
'Proof?'
Fenrir told her he had it confirmed from two independent sources.
He told her where to send help and what the password was then went to have
lunch and then on to the Adarbrent Villa.
Royus met them in the hall. He had never seen any of them before but Fenrir
explained who he was and what his connection to the plot was.
Fenrir went on to explain his rough plan to put the Logos on Cavefoot and that
more would be turning up later including Nurga Namcali and that she had access
to planar beings but could not be trusted.
At that point Royus said 'Wait!'
He left the room and came back ten minutes later with a man that looked like a
cleric and then said
'Continue.'
Fenrir next told him of Maaril and that possibly a Steel Dragon would come along
too. Royus exploded,
'Dragons! Demons! In my house? What about YOUR house? It's not happening here!'
Fenrir tried to persuade him, but it wasn't happening so they returned to the
HGV and talked to Deverreck.
He sighed and said 'We have to do it here, I can't think of anywhere else.'
Fenrir sent out notes to re-arrange the location and waited.
Deverreck set up the chapel as the place this dark rite was to take place and
Nurga Namcali was the first to turn up, ten minutes before her appointed time.
Next was Royus and his retinue. He had Ellis, Anya and the tools as well as
twenty armed guards and three retainers.
Nurga, whose eyes had started glowing red much to everyone's horror said
'Ellis must tattoo Anya with the Logos.'
Both of the protested but Fenrir persuaded Anya saying
'If you hate De Rosan more than anything, then this is the way to get revenge.'
She groaned but said 'Then do it quickly before I change my mind.'
Ellis took longer to persuaded and he was trembling with terror but
eventually said he'd do it.
Deverreck arranged a sofa and a screen and set them up in the corner of
the chapel.
By this point Nestoone and Corum were beginning to get very nervous indeed
and were whispering about whether this was the right thing to do or not and
that basically they were now involved in some serious demon business. Nestoone
wanted to stop it, but Corum could not see how they could now that the die
was cast. He reasoned it was best to stick around at least to pick up the
pieces. Alduin felt like and observer only and was less worried.
By nine o'clock Anya's arms and legs had been done. A servant came through
and told Deverreck that a 'Lady M' was at the front door.
Fenrir was confused to see her when she said
'I got both your notes. What's going on?'
Fenrir suddenly realised that, ever the instrument of his own undoing, he
had left his note addressed to Maaril marked only for 'M' and that Maliantor
had picked it up!
Fenrir tried his best,
'De Rosan is Redraven. Currently we have a plan...'
'What's this plan?'
'We will not need your intervention..'
'So you don't need me?' Maliantor said in confusion.
Fenrir gulped and decided to tell her what was going on.
'What?! You are tattooing some woman with unholy symbols!'
'She's willing!' cried Fenrir.
Maliantor narrowed her eyes and said 'Show me.'
When she saw what was going on she shouted 'Stop this!'
Nurga advanced on her and said 'Let them be, stupid woman.'
Maliantor looked down at Nurga in horror then cast a spell,
'What ARE you, child?'
Nurga turned to Fenrir and said 'Deal with this woman.'
Fenrir tried to defuse the situation but Maliantor cried
'All of you stop! By the authority of the Grey Hands!'
The young warlock, nearly sobbing, kept on saying
'Mal, please just talk to me!'
But Maliantor cast another spell and vanished.
When asked Ellis told them he had about another two hours left to go.
Royus sent his guards to the front gate and said
'We'll hold them as long as we can.'
At ten o'clock an old man calling himself Mr Jinx arrived and Fenrir
went to talk to him. He seemed friendly and said he'd been sent from
Tespergates. Fenrir explained the situation.
'Very well, I will patrol the grounds.' he said and went off with Alduin.
A thunder and lightning storm had started over the city as Ellis started
to do Anya's back. Fenrir looked in on them. Ellis was almost in a delirium
and Anya having lost a lot of blood was in a bad way. Nurga told them not
to cast healing magic on her as it would have an adverse affect on the
magic of the Logos.
A commotion was heard outside. Alduin came in and reported that a force
of Gray Hand's had arrived, including a frost giant and were demanding
access to the house. It was about to kick off.
Fenrir went outside and tried to talk the situation down a bit but
amongst all the shouting and the rumbles of thunder he could hardly be
heard.
Spotting him Maliantor cried
'Harshnag! Take him down!'
As the frost giant got ready to attack Fenrir went invisible and flew
up in the air. Maliantor began to cast spells and another caster hit
Fenrir with a Searing Light spell.
The young warlock landed and said
'Ow! What the heck! I'm just trying to talk.'
The gates though, had descended into chaos so Fenrir went inside and
urgently asked Ellis how much longer it was going to take. Fenrir then
went to talk to Nurga but she had fire behind her eyes and was only
making demonic gurgling sounds.
The others in the room were nervously waiting.
Suddenly outside there was a WOMPF! sound and a dragon appeared in the garden.
It was a big black powerful thing, spewing poisonous gas. It waded into the fight
at the front gates.
Inside the chapel Nurga threw aside the screens, grabbed Anya by the head and
opening her mouth spewed a demonic light into Anya's.
There was an all-mighty crash at the front of the house as a frost giant threw
a dragon through the front door. Fenrir sent out Alduin to take a look.
Nurga let go of Anya. There was a big flash and the little girl vanished.
Anya dropped to the ground and Deverreck asked,
'Is that it? Is this finished?'
Fenrir didn't know and was still stunned from it all.
'Take her and go then. I'll stay here and hold them off.' instructed the cleric.
Fenrir picked up the woman's limp and bloody body and flew out of the window into
the lightning filled sky.
Corum ran for it, Nestoone stayed behind also to try and convince the dragon to
calm down or go away. Fenrir unwisely headed back to the OJB.
DAY 206 (3 Marpenoth)(October)
Fenrir put Anya in Corum's bed.
At one in the morning he heard people coming up stairs. The door opened and in
came a bunch of watchmen. By this stage Fenrir was invisible though.
.
'Looks empty.'
'Check the bed.'
'Oh my gods!'
Two watchmen were left with the woman while the civilar went the amar back to
the watchpost.
Fenrir floated down the stairs then shouted
'Can't a Thunderstaff get any sleep?'
As he came back up one of the watchmen came down leaving only one in the room.
He checked the window, but the OJB was a fortress now and the window was barred.
He pinched Anya's ear, but she did not stir.
Finally he wafted downstairs and affected an entry into the OJB pretending to be
Bob Smith. The civilar came to take his statement and Fenrir made up a pack of lies
on the spot. The civular read it back,
''
You and Corum were up near by Tespergates, walking around seeing the city, unofficial patrol between
8pm to 9pm. What were you doing between 9pm and now? More 'patrolling'. Last saw him at midnight.
outside Warm Beds. You currently live here at the Brewery.'
Not long after that though Maliantor came in with Corum (looking glum!) and seeing Fenrir
said,
'Place this man under arrest.'
A couple of hours later Fenrir and Corum were in separate cells under the Blackstaff Tower.
At ten in the morning she came to Fenrir's cell and said
'I hope it was worth it, because a lot of people died last night. Where did that
dragon come from?'
'An ally of Maaril.' mumbled Fenrir.
'What did you plan with her?'
Fenrir made some vague replies.
Maliantor sternly said 'Well, she is a demon now.' and left.
At one in the afternoon Corum was put in his cell. His friend said
'They are listening, but ... you are an idiot!'
Corum was furious with Fenrir for not only taking Anya to the first place they would look
but also putting her in Corum's bed!
Eventually he calmed down though and said
'It's only because of what happened with the orc horde that we are alive. If you hadn't
basically saved the city by talking Many-Arrows into buggering off you'd be dead by now.'
That night Maliantor again came to the cell and said,
'I have a job for you. Deverreck is dead. We've been watching Redraven and want to take
him out. Blackstaff Tower advises not to, but the Grey Hand's want to take a shot at it.
We chased him around in the Undermountain for ten-days and a lot of good people died.
They want his blood. So, since your evil act can't be undone, we will do it your way.'
DAY 207 (4 Marpenoth)(October)
At one in the morning a coach drew up outside the Artemel Villa where Redraven was
currently residing.
Out stepped Fenrir then Corum, propping up Anya, her bloody face covered by a deep
cowl.
Fenrir approached the gate and said,
'I want Red Raven.'
The guard left then came back ten minutes later and said
'He says to go away.'
The next message he sent was
'I've brought you Anya. I will swap you someone of more value for Veddic and Raya.'
The guard returned and motioned him forward
'Just you.'
Corum and Anya waited at the gate while Fenrir crossed the courtyard to Redraven's abode.
'Good Morning Mr Thunderstaff.' said a sleepy De Rosan.
Fenrir spun him a yarn about trying to stop the whole thing at the HGV.
'Has she been turned into a Vengeance Demon?'
Fenrir said no and De Rosan seemed to believe him.
'Take her away and kill her then, then bring me proof.'
Fenrir blustered and tried to convince De Rosan to see her.
'Huh! Very well! Take Cavefoot to the gate.'
And he instructed the dwarf to get a good look at the woman's face.
As they walked back across the dwarf beamed up at the warlock
'Loving your work my Lord! The Hiilgauntlet Villa is a total wreck! The Grey Hands!
Dragons! Sinister Vengeance Demon summoning rituals! You have the hand of a true
master of chaos!'
As they approached the gate Fenrir tried a colossal bluff
'You are aware she's tattooed anyway?'
But when Cavefoot saw her face he cried
'Aiee! Bossssss!!! Its the Vengeance Demon!!'
A fight started at the gate and Fenrir flew up and away with Anya in his arms.
Corum did his best to barge past the guards and rushed along on the ground so
they were both nearby when Anya suddenly perked up and ran into the house.
Inside she turned into something ... horrible ...there was a scream from De
Rosan and sudden flash........Fenrir and Corum knew nothing more...
[And here, dear reader, we enter the terrible devil harried world of Darkness
Deep! As it covered by the Darkness Barrier it is very difficult to tell the time
as the city is in perpetual night. But for the purposes of clarity I will give
my best guesses as to when one day ends and another begins. So anyway, here begins
the account of Fenrir and my brothers account of their adventures in this truly
terrible place.]
Fenrir awoke. A gaunt faced man was looking down at him,
'Take your time. When you feel better, summon me and I will explain.'
Fenrir sat up and saw he had been lying on a stone bench in a small cellar.
Corum groaned and sat up.
The man returned and brought food and drink then began his tale
''
My name is Kreenan. I am a cleric. You have been dead for fifty years and I have
just resurrected you. You are heroes to the people here because fifty years ago
you defeated Gilliard De Rosan. He is now the ruler of Waterdeep, or Darknessdeep
as it is now called. It is a city of eternal darkness now, under a black barrier
and it is home to devils of all kinds. The few people that still live here are
either enthralled by the De Rosan or enslaved. A few of us though still scrape
a life out of the ruins and still fewer have planned a resistance against our
terrible ruler. I am a member of the resistance and I had just enough power
and materials to bring you back. You are legendary heroes in this city and we
hope, we pray, that whatever you did to destroy him once, you can do again.
''
Fenrir groaned. Corum pinched himself
'I don't feel like I've been dead, but this is real. Fenrir, you've been dead
before. Is this what it is like?'
'I don't think so.' replied the warlock, but he couldn't be sure.
Kreenan brought them clothes, daggers and swords and introduced them to two
more members of the resistance a man called Hirken and a woman called Werner.
Both were underfed and ragged but looked intelligent and fierce.
Clean water and roasted rat was given to them. Fenrir asked to be taken to the
Thunderstaff Villa and since it was not far away Werner volunteered to take them
to the surface.
Out in the open, they got a first sense of what the city was like now. The air was
fetid and full of soot. The darkness was complete except for the occasional light
on the ground or travelling across the sky. The mountain could just be seen by the
evil red glow that came from the Palace and a huge black pillar grew from the mountain
and disappeared into the gloom. Judging their distance from the Palace was how people
found their way around and soon Werner had them at the TSV.
It was nothing more than a pile of stones.
Tall tales in Space. (5641 words) 2009
To give credit where it is due. The idea for this story game from a short story 'PLUS X' by Eric
Frank Russell. Other than a similar plot though this is 100 percent my own work.
Tall tales in Space. (5641 words)
Rewton woke up with a start, then as his brain became a bit more active, he let his head fall
back to the ground. He new he wasn’t going anywhere.
‘I need a cigarette.’ he said to himself and closed his eyes again.
Eventually he groaned, rubbed his eyes and sat up. He was still in the same small metallic cell
he had been in for the last week. Well, a week possibly, he had no way of telling the time these
days. Not that he had ever had a watch or anything so primitive as that in the past, but all
the cybernetic implants and diagnostics that the advanced human race was born with in this age
had ceased functioning since his capture. He had not only lost the power to tell the time,
but his motion sensing and direction finding abilities were also impaired. Still, all Naval
Personnel were taught to function without them, to deal with situations just like this.
So. Captured. Rewton shuffled himself over to a wall and leaned his back against it. He had
nothing to do but reflect. In space, armed forces personnel are rarely captured. Usually
when a ship is hit, its destruction was pretty quick. There is no such thing as survival
pods, not this far out and working alone. There would be no point. Rewton, as the chief
technician on his ship, the Hermes, had been testing the Enviro-suits when the attack had
happened. An enemy destroyer had then scooped him up. To his knowledge he was the first human
prisoner the Illusians had taken.
It was a new war, but was not wanting in blood shed. After only six months of conflict a lot
of lives had been lost. Some of them had been people that Rewton had liked. The Illusians
seemed to be either new at the art of war or were very brutal. They attacked military and
civilian targets with equal ferocity. They were as likely to destroy a hospital as anything
of military worth.
The Illusians had slaughtered many human colonies with big bombs fired from space. They didn’t
seem to understand humans, and appeared to want to clear them out, the same way a man would wipe
out an ants nest. There was little to no diplomacy. There were no surrenders on either side and,
as Rewton had already reflected, they seemed to take no prisoners. He often wondered at the reason
why he might still be alive.
His cell was pretty bare. He slept on the metal floor using his shirt and trousers as a pillow.
It was quite hot in here so he just wore his shorts. There was a large barrel of drinking water,
and another bucket for him to go to the toilet in. There was a console in one wall but he had
been told not too touch that. The light was dim, from a strip above him, about eight feet up.
There were no windows and one door. He suspected there would be a camera watching him somewhere
but he could not detect it.
He sat on the floor and looked at the console and wondered what the alien looking keypad might
do. It looked like a typist’s nightmare, with enough keys for five pairs of hands and looping
spirals of sensors and contact pads around the main area.
Time passed and he drank some water. Some more time passed and he relieved his bladder in the
bucket, gazing at the strange console in thought as he did so.
He was leaning against the wall not thinking of much when the door opened and an Illusian
walked in. Walking was as good as any word for the slow movement of a four legged alien with
three arms and more elbows than Rewton could count.
The Illusians that had captured him had no means by which to communicate with him. He had not
been addressed since his arrival but by gesture they had made it clear that he should not
touch the console. He was surprised then when the Illusian seemed to say to him,
‘Hello, Rewton.’
He didn’t think Illusians could be considered good looking by anyone’s standards. They had a
metallic quality to their skin. It seemed to be optional, or was decided by some process
unknown to Rewton as to how many eyes and arms they had. This one had three arms, all ending
in a clump of long fingers and jointed with probably a dozen elbows each. This one also had
eyes to the number of six all clustered at the base of its head underneath a huge horn, or
maybe some kind of snorkel. There appeared to be no mouth or ears. Its long low squat body
had a stocky leg at each corner.
‘Ummm.. hello..’ He answered and scratched his stubbled chin.
The alien proceeded to produce a box from one hand and put it on the floor. The box was
metallic and appeared to have a small speaker set into it.
‘From this box, we may communicate. You would not be able to understand my real name as it
is composed of a series of modulated high frequency radio waves, but I have decided you may
address me as Isaac.’
‘Oh right.’, replied Rewton.
‘First, formal statement of intentions and purpose. I am your interrogator and my function
is to talk to you.’
Rewton didn’t know how to respond to this so waited in silence.
‘Tell me Rewton, do you enjoy passing water through your body?’
Rewton coughed in surprise, ’Well, enjoy may be the wrong word. I need to drink water or I will die.’
‘Yes, and you consume the packets of proteins and carbohydrates that we captured from your ship.’
‘Yes.’
Isaac seemed to consider this, although his face, or where a face might be, was so alien to
be unreadable. He lowered himself down on his hind legs.
‘Communication protocols, runtime error, sequence, oh , oh sorry.’, Isaac's attention was
suddenly drawn to the small box on the ground.
He started to say something, but a no more than a squawk came out of the box.
The alien considered the box for another moment, tilting his large head around like a dog
looking at a bone. He then extended a long arm and cuffed it.
‘Mental note to self. Examine interpreter routines. Better.’
Rewton was utterly confused.
The alien then continued.
‘What purpose do the dead cells on your head serve?’
‘Huh?’
The alien extended an arm and touched Rewton's hair.
Rewton pulled back and said. ‘Er, none, it just grows there, its hair. Keeps my head warm.’
‘Biological. You have technological items within your body. These grow in you also?’
‘No, these are implants.’
‘Your hair serves no purpose connected to your implants?’
‘Err .. no.’
Isaac seemed to consider this and rocked back on his hind legs.
‘You have smaller hairs on your body, these are biological products of your evolution, maybe
you evolved from more hairy animals. Animals that had a cold environment.’
Nothing in the modulation of the speech keyed Rewton into whether it was a statement or a
question, but he answered, ‘Yes. You are right.’
Isaac seemed happy with this and tilted his head.
‘Well,’ Rewton blurted, ‘I don’t know if you understand what interrogation is all about, but
these are not very important questions.’
‘You are probably right,’ replied Isaac, ‘But you are very alien. Has it been explained to
you that you must not attempt to touch the console?’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘And you will not touch the console or in any way at all interact with it?’
‘Ah, no, no I won't touch it.’
‘I have had to learn my job quickly. I have learned as much as I can from broadcasts and
communications with your species. This is a new method of learning information. And a new
method of communication. Disturbing air molecules to cause vibration. Picked up from sound
sensors. Most odd. Tell me about your race.’
‘What do you want to know?’
Isaac rocked back on his hind legs and slowly rubbed his elbows together then touched them
together, much as a man would steeple his fingers.
‘Tell me about the U.P.’
So, Rewton started to talk about the United Planets. He saw no real purpose in hiding such
basic facts and had never been trained in interrogation techniques or how to handle alien
encounters. He was still a bit shaken up from watching all his friends die on the Hermes,
and besides, like many of his race he was a free thinker and a bit of a pacifist.
In a fairly relaxed voice he revealed the following facts to his captor;
The UP, the United Planets, or sometimes the UFP, the United Federation of Planets depending
on what area of space you lived in was a loose collective of several hundred planets and
orbitals as well as a few thousand deep space facilities. It was all run from a central
committee on a rugged planet orbiting Kochab, a star 126 light years away from Terra, the
birthplace of mankind. How this came to be Rewton explained. As the human race, still
fragmented into different factions explored the stars around them, such as Proxima Centauri,
Tau Ceti, Wolf 359 and Ross 128 they met a more advance civilisation, the Tasters, coming the
other way. By then Terrans had developed faster than light travel, the Tasters while older
and more powerful still relied on generation ships to spread there genes around the galaxy.
Here Rewton's knowledge of history got a bit vague, he suspected they may have had religious
beliefs that disallowed travelling faster than light, as once you understood how to manipulated
wormholes it was, while not easy, certainly doable.
There were wars at first, but soon the two cultures merged, with the seat of power on Kochab
(known locally as My'her). Mankind flourished and spread throughout the Tasters Empire like
a virus, soon taking over everything. One by one, the Tasters on the central committee
were replaced by humans. Over the next few hundred years mankind came to totally dominate
the empire and the U.P. was born.
But Taster ideology, politics and some religion remained. The style of government that
suited such a wide area of space was known as ‘enlightened communism’ by some and ‘tyranny’
by others. The central committee was now in essence immortal due to longevity treatments
and cybernetics. The duma had sat in session and not been dissolved for the last two hundred
and fifteen years. No committee member had been replaced in over three hundred. The CC were
more machine than man.
Freedom in the UP is restricted, Rewton explained, more so on some planets than others. Each
planet has a governor in residence whose job it is to ensure tribute flowed back to Kochab.
Political officers on every planet in the UP watched over and guided the local councils and
soviets encouraging correct political thinking. Capital punishment was encouraged, but not
enforced on every system. Not everyone was happy with such a draconian style of government,
but not much had changed since the days of the Tasters and seemed unlikely to with the CC so
firmly installed.
And what had happened to the Tasters?
They had all vanished in a mass exodus four hundred years ago to the 'second arm', Terra,
Kochab, even the Illusians, being in the third arm of the galaxy.
A very totalitarian communist style regime, yes, but one suited to the situation and much
more enlightened than any form of government in history.
Certainly an improvement on the nearest alternative.
Rewton came to a natural stop in his monologue. He had done all the talking except for the
occasional question from Isaac.
Isaac rolled back on his hind legs and said
‘Yes, tell me about the Empire.’
The human nodded and said , ‘The Empire. It’s like a nightmare. Out past Ross 154, about
100 light years towards galactic centre. Our border touches theirs there. I suppose we have
always been at war with them. The only bits that we have ever seen are the slave planets.
The actual empire itself is said to extend for hundreds and hundreds of light years, maybe
all the way to galactic centre.’
It was funny, thought Rewton, like a ghost story for children, the Empire seemed to exist
to scare the member planets of the UP into line. Like medieval stories of the devil, the
fear of the dreadful alternative kept them all together.
Isaac seemed to wave a well elbowed arm in a gesture that might have meant Rewton was to continue.
‘Well.’, Rewton shrugged, ‘It could be all propaganda, I don’t know. I have seen pictures of
who the rulers of the Empire are supposed to be. Big black nasty spiders, but you never get
one on the border, we only hear stories from prisoners and released slaves. The tip of the
Empire that we can see from our border maybe goes about a dozen systems deep and all of
them are slave planets. In the war we fight other humans or genetic soldiers. We call the
Empire Spiderspace.’ , Rewton shrugged, ‘What can I say? For us humans, it's our worst
nightmare.’
He then chanced his arm, ‘Those ration packs you found off the Hermes, did you happen to
find any cigarettes as well?’
Isaac rubbed two of his elbows together for a while then said
‘I believe it is required that when I leave the room I must say goodbye. Goodbye.’
The alien rose up onto its legs and left.
‘Ah goodbye.’, replied Rewton with a half hearted wave.
He felt so awkward about the aliens attempt at manners and the interrogation, if you could
call it that had given him a lot to think about. He walked around the room for an hour to
stretch his legs.
After Rewton had slept he sat up and looked at the console. They obviously don’t understand
human nature very well anyway, he reflected. Why not touch the console. What will happen? Is
it electrified in some way? I suppose this is the nearest thing they could find to act as a
cell for me? Perhaps an operator worked here doing whatever that console does. Do they
understand that maybe my word that I won’t touch it is maybe not enough to stop me from doing
so? They talk like computer programs.
Rewton doubted if he was terribly representative of his race anyway. His people, the people
that lived on the man made satellites around Tau Ceti were a bit more free thinking and open
minded than most in the UP. He had been conscripted into the Navy and when his term was
served he would leave. He had seen many battles in the three years he had been in service
but he would never be a military man. In two years assuming he was still alive and free, he
would go back into civilian life. Maybe go back to Tau Ceti and get a job in one of the tech
modules.
The next day, or what felt like the next day, Rewton could no longer stand the boredom of being
locked in the cell and started to fiddle with the console.
He started to press keys at random, then pocked about on the odd looking sensors and swirling
areas they felt like jelly to the touch.
He had expected a shock, but nothing seemed to happen. After a few more random key presses
some of them suddenly lit up. One of what may have been a display area brightened, then went
dark again. Without thinking he gasped and pulled his hands up to his chest.
Just as he was slowly lowering his hands back down to the console the door opened and Isaac
lumbered in.
‘It was explained to you that you are not to interface with the console.’
Like a guilty school boy Rewton stepped back and put his hands behind his back.
‘Ah yes.’
‘Yet you did so.’
‘Sorry.’
Isaac moved up to the console and with clicking elbows extended several of his seemingly
endless supply of fingers pressed several keys.
As he did so he said,
‘You understood the command when it was issued and yet a fault occurred. Your processing
may be corrupt.’
‘Well ...’, began Rewton.
Isaac seemed to finish what he was doing, turned to the human and said,
‘This is a makeshift cell. The console is for an operator to monitor and control nanode fuel
consumption on the base. You could have caused some serious damage.’
Rewton was amazed, ‘But why put me here, I am your enemy!’
‘Your processing was not seen as faulty.’
It began to dawn on Rewton that he was being treated like a piece of broken programming.
He hoped that they were not going to debug him as harshly as he had done to some of the
systems on the Hermes.
‘Why have a console at all? I thought you communicated via radio waves?’
‘Correct. For lights, doors, terminals and data stores. But not for secure systems.’
‘I understand. Humans can get implants to do these things as well.’
‘We are made like this.’, Isaac said as he left the room, ‘Goodbye.’
Very shortly after that, two more silent aliens arrived and dismantled the console.
Some time later was awoken from his thoughts by Isaac entering the room, giving a tantalising
view of the corridor beyond, bearing an empty bucket, some food and the communications device.
‘Hello Rewton.’
‘Hello Isaac.’, he replied.
The whole of that day, as it felt anyway, Rewton had to eat two meals during it, the
interrogation continued. Mostly it was about military matters. Early on Rewton found that
he could deny knowledge of something and Isaac would take it as gospel that Rewton did not
know anything about the subject under question. He knew a great deal about the weapon systems
that had been on board the Hermes, as the chief technician it was his job. But once he had said
to Isaac he knew nothing about it, as far as the alien was concerned, that was that. He was
willing to answer more general questions, and occasionally he would ask one of his own, which
Isaac would always answer in some way. Rewton had never been interrogated before, but he felt
that, on the whole, Isaac was pretty hopeless at it.
Over the course of the day he learned a few interesting facts about his alien captors.
The Illusians were an escaped robotic race, their masters being long since dead. Certainly it
was hard to tell by looking at them, they look more like large beetles than robots.
In terms of their own race, they appeared to be very adaptive and fairly peaceful. Any one
Illusian could do the job of another one after only a few days training. It was also hard to
imagine how one of these great hulks could get angry at another one. There seemed to be so
little for them to argue about.
There is little crime, in fact they didn’t really understand the concept of crime. Occasionally
an Illusian would behave in a manner dangerous to another. The wrong doer was seen as faulty
and was ‘dismantled’.
They favoured democracy as the main mode of politics, Isaac could only explain the human races
politics by their primitive modes of communication. He though Rewton very backward.
They communicated with each other via radio waves which had meant that someone had had to
design and build a device to communicate with humans. Their large brains were apparently in
their torsos.
The next day they talk about politics. Rewton argued that galactic communism is the only way
to run a nation as big as the UP, but Isaac argued that democracy (something that humans saw
as outmoded), freedom and leniency were the best way. This conversation went on for some time
and Rewton got the feeling that Isaac enjoyed it.
The conversation gradually worked its way back onto more recent events and up to the destruction
of the Hermes.
‘Tell me again how was it you came to survive?’ asked Isaac.
‘Lucky I guess. I was outside the ship, testing a suit. I still had a full tank of air when
you nailed the Hermes.’
‘What is luck?’
‘Luck, you know, er.. liked I had a guardian angel looking after me.’
‘A guardian angel. What is that?’
‘Hmm, a spirit. A supernatural entity that watches over you and protects you.’
‘Do all humans have this?’
‘No ah, well. Hard to say.’
‘That is very interesting.’ ,mused Isaac.
The day after that Isaac brought up the Empire and Spiderspace again.
‘From overheard transmissions I have learned this human phrase,’ he said, ‘The enemy of
my enemy is my friend.’
‘Sure yeah. Make friends with a bunch of nasty evil super-alien spiders.’
‘Evil is a human concept.’
Rewton sighed and leaned back, ‘They can’t be reasoned with. Don’t let me stop you though.
They treat all other species as cattle. The pictures and newsreel I have seen.. I mean, they
recycle human dead and feed it back to them. Not just humans though, other races too. Bread
to be numerous and highly expendable. Working in mines, on farms or bread to be soldiers. If
population gets to high on a planet, they just kill people off.’
‘That isn’t the correct way to deal with sentient beings.’, contemplated Isaac.
‘You said it pal.’
Rewton knew the UP could only withstand the Empire partly because of the vastness of space,
and partly because of a slight technological edge on the side of the Terrans, but if the Empire
and the Illusians were to get together? That would be the end for the UP wouldn’t it? He couldn’t
see how they could fight two united enemies at the same time. He groaned inwardly, there wasn't
much he could do about that where he was at the moment.
Another day, another talk. Isaac lent back on his hind legs, something that Rewton had began to
think of as the Illusian version of how a human might lean back on a chair, then said,
'So, explain to my why we are at war?'
Rewton shrugged, 'Simple, you attacked us.'
'We attacked a base they you established on a barren moon in a star system that we inhabit.'
'According to the 1414 treaty we had every right to be there.'
'A treaty we know nothing about.’ replied Isaac
For about the thousandth time, Rewton wished he had a cigarette.
'Well, this is the way things happen. We are at war.', he said eventually.
Isaac contemplated this for a while, then said,
‘Tell me about the worm hole technology that allows you to travel faster than light.’
‘I don’t know anything about that, I just fixed the chicken soup machines.’ Rewton lied.
‘You’re aware of the dangers inherent in worm home travel?’
Rewton shrugged, ‘I don’t know.’
Isaac didn’t seem to mind Rewton’s reticence, and in fact was willing to share some information
with his captive,
‘Illusian ships use anti-matter drives to go at very nearly the speed of light. We do not bend
and crush the same way a human might under the forces of great gravity. The expansion of our
race has been slow, but up until now it has not seemed to matter as we are very long lived.’
Rewton merely nodded and Isaac continued,
‘Up until now, that has not seemed to matter. But against a race like yours. Each unit is short
lived, but the whole is driven by an inexorable drive for expansion.’
Rewton smiled and held out his hands in an apology, ‘It’s not my fault.’
‘Fault,’, replied Isaac, ‘Yes. Something is at fault here.’
Isaac sometimes seemed to talk to Rewton like he is a computer program he was trying to debug.
‘My superior as been discussing with me the idea of dismantling you. He is of the opinion we
would would gain more information from you than by diagnostics.’
‘Oh really’, gulped Rewton, ‘I.. I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘I agree’, replied Isaac, ‘Communication through sound waves has revealed a lot to me over
the last week. Even so, there will come a time when we have discovered all there is to know
via this method. At some point we will need to reverse engineer you. Goodbye.’
Isaac stood and departed, leaving Rewton alone and very worried indeed.
‘Think man, think’, said Rewton to himself, biting his fingernails as his cigarette cravings
hit hard.
He can lie, he knew that. Isaac, and presumably all Illusians seemed to find it very hard to
tell the difference between the truth and a lie. They probably never lied to each other, he
could see it, in such a well organised society.
Rewton thought back to the conversation’s he had had over the last week with his interrogator.
‘I really ,really don’t like the idea of being reverse engineered.’
He thought over all the conversations he had had with Isaac, surely there was something he
could use.
He leaned over and opened a ration pack. There were some biscuits inside, they didn’t taste
great but they reminded him of his childhood. They were called ‘Berty’s Originals’ although
he had no idea why. They were sort of star shaped and looked a little like a human with either
four arms or wings. When he had been a child they had all said how much the shape of the
biscuits were like little angels...
Rewton smiled, he had had an idea.
Isaac entered to find Rewton had been busy. The human had been drawing on the wall with
foodstuffs, a complicated circular design made from tomato sauce and chocolate spread. The
human sat under it, his legs crossed and his arms held out on his knees, the index finger
of each hand touching the thumb of the same hand. He was emitting a low humming sound.
‘What are you doing Rewton?’, asked the alien.
Rewton opened his eyes and stopped humming,
‘I am communicating with my Berty of course.’
‘What is a Berty?’
‘My guardian angel. It saved me, remember I told you?’
‘Your luck?’
‘Well yes. Now I am asking my Berty to send help for me.’
‘It can do that?’
‘Of course. Bertys are supernatural. They can travel space and time with ease. They are
all powerful.’
‘Is it here? I cannot see it.’, said Isaac scanning the room with his six eyes.
‘Bertys are invisible.’
‘I cannot detect it by any means.’
‘Berty’s are non-corporeal.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Listen’, said Rewton, making it all up as he went along. ‘All humans have two components.
They have a physical component, their body, and a supernatural component, their Bert.’
‘You are faulty.’
‘No. You cannot prove that what I am saying is not true. An invisible, non-corporeal entity
that can travel through space and time to aid its host body cannot be disproved.’
‘You are correct. Please stop communicating with your Berty now.’
‘Too late. I have finished.’
Something occurred to Isaac as he wrestled with the idea of truth and lies,
‘If what you said is true, then why were you the only survivor of the Hermes? Didn't all the
other humans have Bertys?’
Rewton had to think about that , ‘Ah.. they did. They were saved. That is why you found no
human remains.’
‘Yes. Or it could have been because the ship was completely vaporised.’
‘It cannot be proved either way then.’
Isaac paused for a while, possible communicating with its fellow Illusians.
‘Goodbye.’ He said finally and left the room.
Rewton fought the urge to laugh, but let out a big sigh or relief none the less.
He hoped that little performance was enough to keep them interested in him for a while
longer. Whenever the words ‘reverse engineer’ came up next he would make up something else
just as silly.
A week passed, and Isaac did not come to see him. Rewton was beginning to think they had
forgotten him, but finally he got not one but two visitors. One was Isaac, whom he recognised
by his limb configuration and one was an Illusian he didn’t know.
Isaac placed a small machine down on the floor of the room and an image flicked into life.
‘Please watch this.’ ,he instructed.
Rewton saw what looked like the bridge of a star ship with a human sat on a seat close up to
whatever was recording. He looked about in his fifties, was black haired and had a pencil
thin moustache.
An electronic voice said,
‘You are Ambassador Krinn of Terra?’
‘Yes I am.’
‘I am a councillor of the Illusian Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War. You may refer
to me as Jacob.’
‘Right.’, said the human curtly.
‘We have made contact with you to discuss certain things of concern to both of our races.’
‘Go on then.’
‘We wish to discuss the moon on the first system of..’
Here the recording appeared to be cut because it obviously skipped forward. A lot further
forward in fact because Krinn seemed to need a shave, had obviously not slept in a long time
and was nervously smoking a cigarette butt that had nearly gone out.
‘One more question on human biology’, droned on Jacob, ‘Can you confirm that all humans are
part of a pairing between a physical body and a supernatural entity that is both invisible
and non-corporeal and that can travel through space and time.’
‘What?’
‘Known as a Berty?’
‘You’ve lost me there buddy.’
‘Or as a guardian angel.’
Krinn’s face was blank, but then it dawned on him and he smiled, ‘Ohhhh riiiight. Sure guardian
angels. We’ve all got them. Well known fact.’
Rewton watching, had to stuff his fist into his mouth to stop laughing. He felt like if he ever
met Krinn he would give him a kiss.
‘Known to humans perhaps. Illusians are purely physical beings. It has often been a point of
discussion by Illusian philosophers on the subject of the make up of biological beings but we
have never gathered any empirical evidence on the matter. We are beings descended from
machines, we know this, we know who made us, we know the limits of our being. We do not know
the limits of sentient biological beings.’
‘Right, well, you’d better know about the .. ah.. pixies as well. They are like guardian angels
but they are not linked to every human .. they, ah, go around doing good deeds.’
Careful thought Rewton, don’t over do it. But Jacob seemed to be swallowing it.
‘Are pixies like guardian angels?’
‘Very much so’ replied the Ambassador, ‘They serve a similar purpose.’
‘I see, what can you tell us about..’
The recording was cut here. Rewton looked up at Isaac.
‘Well?’, he said.
The other Illusian spoke,
‘This information has made the Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War reconsider its
strategy. We cannot conduct a war against beings that have a supernatural component in
their make up. It has been decided that a cease fire will be offered to your military leaders
and the terms of our surrender will be discussed.’
Rewton went pale and was almost quivering with excitement,
‘Really? And me?’
‘A U.P. ship is already on its way to collect you.’
The unnamed Illusian rose and left the room, Isaac stayed.
‘Really, Isaac? I can go?’
‘Yes. When the J.C.C. got independent verification of Bertys, they decided there were now too
many unknown factors and that pursuing a course of conflict was untenable.’
‘I’m.. I’m amazed.’, said Rewton. He couldn’t believe his story had in effect stopped the
entire war.
‘Be glad. You and I, we do not like to see killing. This is the best for both our races.’
Rewton looked the alien in its six eyes, but could see nothing. No sarcasm or hidden meaning
in his words?
‘Do you.. I mean, you personally, believe everything I said?’
‘Why would I doubt you? What does it serve to make statements that are not true?’
Rewton pulled on his lip, ‘Well, the war’s over for a start.’
‘I think that answers your question admirably then. Please follow me. Would you like to see
the rest of the base before your fellows come to take you away?’
Sometime later Rewton met Ambassador Krinn, as he boarded a diplomatic vessel that was taking
them back to Kochab.
‘Bertys huh?’, grunted the Ambassador.
‘Pixies?’
‘Ha! What can I say? You are the hero of the day though. You’ll have a big reward coming your way.’
Rewton smiled and said, ‘I would trade it all for one of those cigarettes in your top pocket.’
Krinn offered him one and even lit it.
Rewton took a long hard drag and blew a big cloud of smoke up into the gangway.
‘Don’t let the captain catch you smoking here though, he’s pretty old fashioned about that
sort of thin.’
‘Reckon I’ve earned it,’ replied Rewton in between puffs.
‘You think they really fell for it. They believe in Bertys now I mean?’
‘I guess so. But I think one of them, Isaac, was beginning to suspect. But I don’t think he
liked the war, so it suited him. Maybe they would have ended it anyway and I was just in the
right place at the right time.’
‘Maybe that was just your Berty looking out for you?’, smirked the diplomat.
Rewton laughed, ‘You know, my mother always told me never to tell lies.’
‘Well, she’s going to have a hard time swallowing this story I think. Come on, I’ll show you
to your cabin.’
Frank Russell. Other than a similar plot though this is 100 percent my own work.
Tall tales in Space. (5641 words)
Rewton woke up with a start, then as his brain became a bit more active, he let his head fall
back to the ground. He new he wasn’t going anywhere.
‘I need a cigarette.’ he said to himself and closed his eyes again.
Eventually he groaned, rubbed his eyes and sat up. He was still in the same small metallic cell
he had been in for the last week. Well, a week possibly, he had no way of telling the time these
days. Not that he had ever had a watch or anything so primitive as that in the past, but all
the cybernetic implants and diagnostics that the advanced human race was born with in this age
had ceased functioning since his capture. He had not only lost the power to tell the time,
but his motion sensing and direction finding abilities were also impaired. Still, all Naval
Personnel were taught to function without them, to deal with situations just like this.
So. Captured. Rewton shuffled himself over to a wall and leaned his back against it. He had
nothing to do but reflect. In space, armed forces personnel are rarely captured. Usually
when a ship is hit, its destruction was pretty quick. There is no such thing as survival
pods, not this far out and working alone. There would be no point. Rewton, as the chief
technician on his ship, the Hermes, had been testing the Enviro-suits when the attack had
happened. An enemy destroyer had then scooped him up. To his knowledge he was the first human
prisoner the Illusians had taken.
It was a new war, but was not wanting in blood shed. After only six months of conflict a lot
of lives had been lost. Some of them had been people that Rewton had liked. The Illusians
seemed to be either new at the art of war or were very brutal. They attacked military and
civilian targets with equal ferocity. They were as likely to destroy a hospital as anything
of military worth.
The Illusians had slaughtered many human colonies with big bombs fired from space. They didn’t
seem to understand humans, and appeared to want to clear them out, the same way a man would wipe
out an ants nest. There was little to no diplomacy. There were no surrenders on either side and,
as Rewton had already reflected, they seemed to take no prisoners. He often wondered at the reason
why he might still be alive.
His cell was pretty bare. He slept on the metal floor using his shirt and trousers as a pillow.
It was quite hot in here so he just wore his shorts. There was a large barrel of drinking water,
and another bucket for him to go to the toilet in. There was a console in one wall but he had
been told not too touch that. The light was dim, from a strip above him, about eight feet up.
There were no windows and one door. He suspected there would be a camera watching him somewhere
but he could not detect it.
He sat on the floor and looked at the console and wondered what the alien looking keypad might
do. It looked like a typist’s nightmare, with enough keys for five pairs of hands and looping
spirals of sensors and contact pads around the main area.
Time passed and he drank some water. Some more time passed and he relieved his bladder in the
bucket, gazing at the strange console in thought as he did so.
He was leaning against the wall not thinking of much when the door opened and an Illusian
walked in. Walking was as good as any word for the slow movement of a four legged alien with
three arms and more elbows than Rewton could count.
The Illusians that had captured him had no means by which to communicate with him. He had not
been addressed since his arrival but by gesture they had made it clear that he should not
touch the console. He was surprised then when the Illusian seemed to say to him,
‘Hello, Rewton.’
He didn’t think Illusians could be considered good looking by anyone’s standards. They had a
metallic quality to their skin. It seemed to be optional, or was decided by some process
unknown to Rewton as to how many eyes and arms they had. This one had three arms, all ending
in a clump of long fingers and jointed with probably a dozen elbows each. This one also had
eyes to the number of six all clustered at the base of its head underneath a huge horn, or
maybe some kind of snorkel. There appeared to be no mouth or ears. Its long low squat body
had a stocky leg at each corner.
‘Ummm.. hello..’ He answered and scratched his stubbled chin.
The alien proceeded to produce a box from one hand and put it on the floor. The box was
metallic and appeared to have a small speaker set into it.
‘From this box, we may communicate. You would not be able to understand my real name as it
is composed of a series of modulated high frequency radio waves, but I have decided you may
address me as Isaac.’
‘Oh right.’, replied Rewton.
‘First, formal statement of intentions and purpose. I am your interrogator and my function
is to talk to you.’
Rewton didn’t know how to respond to this so waited in silence.
‘Tell me Rewton, do you enjoy passing water through your body?’
Rewton coughed in surprise, ’Well, enjoy may be the wrong word. I need to drink water or I will die.’
‘Yes, and you consume the packets of proteins and carbohydrates that we captured from your ship.’
‘Yes.’
Isaac seemed to consider this, although his face, or where a face might be, was so alien to
be unreadable. He lowered himself down on his hind legs.
‘Communication protocols, runtime error, sequence, oh , oh sorry.’, Isaac's attention was
suddenly drawn to the small box on the ground.
He started to say something, but a no more than a squawk came out of the box.
The alien considered the box for another moment, tilting his large head around like a dog
looking at a bone. He then extended a long arm and cuffed it.
‘Mental note to self. Examine interpreter routines. Better.’
Rewton was utterly confused.
The alien then continued.
‘What purpose do the dead cells on your head serve?’
‘Huh?’
The alien extended an arm and touched Rewton's hair.
Rewton pulled back and said. ‘Er, none, it just grows there, its hair. Keeps my head warm.’
‘Biological. You have technological items within your body. These grow in you also?’
‘No, these are implants.’
‘Your hair serves no purpose connected to your implants?’
‘Err .. no.’
Isaac seemed to consider this and rocked back on his hind legs.
‘You have smaller hairs on your body, these are biological products of your evolution, maybe
you evolved from more hairy animals. Animals that had a cold environment.’
Nothing in the modulation of the speech keyed Rewton into whether it was a statement or a
question, but he answered, ‘Yes. You are right.’
Isaac seemed happy with this and tilted his head.
‘Well,’ Rewton blurted, ‘I don’t know if you understand what interrogation is all about, but
these are not very important questions.’
‘You are probably right,’ replied Isaac, ‘But you are very alien. Has it been explained to
you that you must not attempt to touch the console?’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘And you will not touch the console or in any way at all interact with it?’
‘Ah, no, no I won't touch it.’
‘I have had to learn my job quickly. I have learned as much as I can from broadcasts and
communications with your species. This is a new method of learning information. And a new
method of communication. Disturbing air molecules to cause vibration. Picked up from sound
sensors. Most odd. Tell me about your race.’
‘What do you want to know?’
Isaac rocked back on his hind legs and slowly rubbed his elbows together then touched them
together, much as a man would steeple his fingers.
‘Tell me about the U.P.’
So, Rewton started to talk about the United Planets. He saw no real purpose in hiding such
basic facts and had never been trained in interrogation techniques or how to handle alien
encounters. He was still a bit shaken up from watching all his friends die on the Hermes,
and besides, like many of his race he was a free thinker and a bit of a pacifist.
In a fairly relaxed voice he revealed the following facts to his captor;
The UP, the United Planets, or sometimes the UFP, the United Federation of Planets depending
on what area of space you lived in was a loose collective of several hundred planets and
orbitals as well as a few thousand deep space facilities. It was all run from a central
committee on a rugged planet orbiting Kochab, a star 126 light years away from Terra, the
birthplace of mankind. How this came to be Rewton explained. As the human race, still
fragmented into different factions explored the stars around them, such as Proxima Centauri,
Tau Ceti, Wolf 359 and Ross 128 they met a more advance civilisation, the Tasters, coming the
other way. By then Terrans had developed faster than light travel, the Tasters while older
and more powerful still relied on generation ships to spread there genes around the galaxy.
Here Rewton's knowledge of history got a bit vague, he suspected they may have had religious
beliefs that disallowed travelling faster than light, as once you understood how to manipulated
wormholes it was, while not easy, certainly doable.
There were wars at first, but soon the two cultures merged, with the seat of power on Kochab
(known locally as My'her). Mankind flourished and spread throughout the Tasters Empire like
a virus, soon taking over everything. One by one, the Tasters on the central committee
were replaced by humans. Over the next few hundred years mankind came to totally dominate
the empire and the U.P. was born.
But Taster ideology, politics and some religion remained. The style of government that
suited such a wide area of space was known as ‘enlightened communism’ by some and ‘tyranny’
by others. The central committee was now in essence immortal due to longevity treatments
and cybernetics. The duma had sat in session and not been dissolved for the last two hundred
and fifteen years. No committee member had been replaced in over three hundred. The CC were
more machine than man.
Freedom in the UP is restricted, Rewton explained, more so on some planets than others. Each
planet has a governor in residence whose job it is to ensure tribute flowed back to Kochab.
Political officers on every planet in the UP watched over and guided the local councils and
soviets encouraging correct political thinking. Capital punishment was encouraged, but not
enforced on every system. Not everyone was happy with such a draconian style of government,
but not much had changed since the days of the Tasters and seemed unlikely to with the CC so
firmly installed.
And what had happened to the Tasters?
They had all vanished in a mass exodus four hundred years ago to the 'second arm', Terra,
Kochab, even the Illusians, being in the third arm of the galaxy.
A very totalitarian communist style regime, yes, but one suited to the situation and much
more enlightened than any form of government in history.
Certainly an improvement on the nearest alternative.
Rewton came to a natural stop in his monologue. He had done all the talking except for the
occasional question from Isaac.
Isaac rolled back on his hind legs and said
‘Yes, tell me about the Empire.’
The human nodded and said , ‘The Empire. It’s like a nightmare. Out past Ross 154, about
100 light years towards galactic centre. Our border touches theirs there. I suppose we have
always been at war with them. The only bits that we have ever seen are the slave planets.
The actual empire itself is said to extend for hundreds and hundreds of light years, maybe
all the way to galactic centre.’
It was funny, thought Rewton, like a ghost story for children, the Empire seemed to exist
to scare the member planets of the UP into line. Like medieval stories of the devil, the
fear of the dreadful alternative kept them all together.
Isaac seemed to wave a well elbowed arm in a gesture that might have meant Rewton was to continue.
‘Well.’, Rewton shrugged, ‘It could be all propaganda, I don’t know. I have seen pictures of
who the rulers of the Empire are supposed to be. Big black nasty spiders, but you never get
one on the border, we only hear stories from prisoners and released slaves. The tip of the
Empire that we can see from our border maybe goes about a dozen systems deep and all of
them are slave planets. In the war we fight other humans or genetic soldiers. We call the
Empire Spiderspace.’ , Rewton shrugged, ‘What can I say? For us humans, it's our worst
nightmare.’
He then chanced his arm, ‘Those ration packs you found off the Hermes, did you happen to
find any cigarettes as well?’
Isaac rubbed two of his elbows together for a while then said
‘I believe it is required that when I leave the room I must say goodbye. Goodbye.’
The alien rose up onto its legs and left.
‘Ah goodbye.’, replied Rewton with a half hearted wave.
He felt so awkward about the aliens attempt at manners and the interrogation, if you could
call it that had given him a lot to think about. He walked around the room for an hour to
stretch his legs.
After Rewton had slept he sat up and looked at the console. They obviously don’t understand
human nature very well anyway, he reflected. Why not touch the console. What will happen? Is
it electrified in some way? I suppose this is the nearest thing they could find to act as a
cell for me? Perhaps an operator worked here doing whatever that console does. Do they
understand that maybe my word that I won’t touch it is maybe not enough to stop me from doing
so? They talk like computer programs.
Rewton doubted if he was terribly representative of his race anyway. His people, the people
that lived on the man made satellites around Tau Ceti were a bit more free thinking and open
minded than most in the UP. He had been conscripted into the Navy and when his term was
served he would leave. He had seen many battles in the three years he had been in service
but he would never be a military man. In two years assuming he was still alive and free, he
would go back into civilian life. Maybe go back to Tau Ceti and get a job in one of the tech
modules.
The next day, or what felt like the next day, Rewton could no longer stand the boredom of being
locked in the cell and started to fiddle with the console.
He started to press keys at random, then pocked about on the odd looking sensors and swirling
areas they felt like jelly to the touch.
He had expected a shock, but nothing seemed to happen. After a few more random key presses
some of them suddenly lit up. One of what may have been a display area brightened, then went
dark again. Without thinking he gasped and pulled his hands up to his chest.
Just as he was slowly lowering his hands back down to the console the door opened and Isaac
lumbered in.
‘It was explained to you that you are not to interface with the console.’
Like a guilty school boy Rewton stepped back and put his hands behind his back.
‘Ah yes.’
‘Yet you did so.’
‘Sorry.’
Isaac moved up to the console and with clicking elbows extended several of his seemingly
endless supply of fingers pressed several keys.
As he did so he said,
‘You understood the command when it was issued and yet a fault occurred. Your processing
may be corrupt.’
‘Well ...’, began Rewton.
Isaac seemed to finish what he was doing, turned to the human and said,
‘This is a makeshift cell. The console is for an operator to monitor and control nanode fuel
consumption on the base. You could have caused some serious damage.’
Rewton was amazed, ‘But why put me here, I am your enemy!’
‘Your processing was not seen as faulty.’
It began to dawn on Rewton that he was being treated like a piece of broken programming.
He hoped that they were not going to debug him as harshly as he had done to some of the
systems on the Hermes.
‘Why have a console at all? I thought you communicated via radio waves?’
‘Correct. For lights, doors, terminals and data stores. But not for secure systems.’
‘I understand. Humans can get implants to do these things as well.’
‘We are made like this.’, Isaac said as he left the room, ‘Goodbye.’
Very shortly after that, two more silent aliens arrived and dismantled the console.
Some time later was awoken from his thoughts by Isaac entering the room, giving a tantalising
view of the corridor beyond, bearing an empty bucket, some food and the communications device.
‘Hello Rewton.’
‘Hello Isaac.’, he replied.
The whole of that day, as it felt anyway, Rewton had to eat two meals during it, the
interrogation continued. Mostly it was about military matters. Early on Rewton found that
he could deny knowledge of something and Isaac would take it as gospel that Rewton did not
know anything about the subject under question. He knew a great deal about the weapon systems
that had been on board the Hermes, as the chief technician it was his job. But once he had said
to Isaac he knew nothing about it, as far as the alien was concerned, that was that. He was
willing to answer more general questions, and occasionally he would ask one of his own, which
Isaac would always answer in some way. Rewton had never been interrogated before, but he felt
that, on the whole, Isaac was pretty hopeless at it.
Over the course of the day he learned a few interesting facts about his alien captors.
The Illusians were an escaped robotic race, their masters being long since dead. Certainly it
was hard to tell by looking at them, they look more like large beetles than robots.
In terms of their own race, they appeared to be very adaptive and fairly peaceful. Any one
Illusian could do the job of another one after only a few days training. It was also hard to
imagine how one of these great hulks could get angry at another one. There seemed to be so
little for them to argue about.
There is little crime, in fact they didn’t really understand the concept of crime. Occasionally
an Illusian would behave in a manner dangerous to another. The wrong doer was seen as faulty
and was ‘dismantled’.
They favoured democracy as the main mode of politics, Isaac could only explain the human races
politics by their primitive modes of communication. He though Rewton very backward.
They communicated with each other via radio waves which had meant that someone had had to
design and build a device to communicate with humans. Their large brains were apparently in
their torsos.
The next day they talk about politics. Rewton argued that galactic communism is the only way
to run a nation as big as the UP, but Isaac argued that democracy (something that humans saw
as outmoded), freedom and leniency were the best way. This conversation went on for some time
and Rewton got the feeling that Isaac enjoyed it.
The conversation gradually worked its way back onto more recent events and up to the destruction
of the Hermes.
‘Tell me again how was it you came to survive?’ asked Isaac.
‘Lucky I guess. I was outside the ship, testing a suit. I still had a full tank of air when
you nailed the Hermes.’
‘What is luck?’
‘Luck, you know, er.. liked I had a guardian angel looking after me.’
‘A guardian angel. What is that?’
‘Hmm, a spirit. A supernatural entity that watches over you and protects you.’
‘Do all humans have this?’
‘No ah, well. Hard to say.’
‘That is very interesting.’ ,mused Isaac.
The day after that Isaac brought up the Empire and Spiderspace again.
‘From overheard transmissions I have learned this human phrase,’ he said, ‘The enemy of
my enemy is my friend.’
‘Sure yeah. Make friends with a bunch of nasty evil super-alien spiders.’
‘Evil is a human concept.’
Rewton sighed and leaned back, ‘They can’t be reasoned with. Don’t let me stop you though.
They treat all other species as cattle. The pictures and newsreel I have seen.. I mean, they
recycle human dead and feed it back to them. Not just humans though, other races too. Bread
to be numerous and highly expendable. Working in mines, on farms or bread to be soldiers. If
population gets to high on a planet, they just kill people off.’
‘That isn’t the correct way to deal with sentient beings.’, contemplated Isaac.
‘You said it pal.’
Rewton knew the UP could only withstand the Empire partly because of the vastness of space,
and partly because of a slight technological edge on the side of the Terrans, but if the Empire
and the Illusians were to get together? That would be the end for the UP wouldn’t it? He couldn’t
see how they could fight two united enemies at the same time. He groaned inwardly, there wasn't
much he could do about that where he was at the moment.
Another day, another talk. Isaac lent back on his hind legs, something that Rewton had began to
think of as the Illusian version of how a human might lean back on a chair, then said,
'So, explain to my why we are at war?'
Rewton shrugged, 'Simple, you attacked us.'
'We attacked a base they you established on a barren moon in a star system that we inhabit.'
'According to the 1414 treaty we had every right to be there.'
'A treaty we know nothing about.’ replied Isaac
For about the thousandth time, Rewton wished he had a cigarette.
'Well, this is the way things happen. We are at war.', he said eventually.
Isaac contemplated this for a while, then said,
‘Tell me about the worm hole technology that allows you to travel faster than light.’
‘I don’t know anything about that, I just fixed the chicken soup machines.’ Rewton lied.
‘You’re aware of the dangers inherent in worm home travel?’
Rewton shrugged, ‘I don’t know.’
Isaac didn’t seem to mind Rewton’s reticence, and in fact was willing to share some information
with his captive,
‘Illusian ships use anti-matter drives to go at very nearly the speed of light. We do not bend
and crush the same way a human might under the forces of great gravity. The expansion of our
race has been slow, but up until now it has not seemed to matter as we are very long lived.’
Rewton merely nodded and Isaac continued,
‘Up until now, that has not seemed to matter. But against a race like yours. Each unit is short
lived, but the whole is driven by an inexorable drive for expansion.’
Rewton smiled and held out his hands in an apology, ‘It’s not my fault.’
‘Fault,’, replied Isaac, ‘Yes. Something is at fault here.’
Isaac sometimes seemed to talk to Rewton like he is a computer program he was trying to debug.
‘My superior as been discussing with me the idea of dismantling you. He is of the opinion we
would would gain more information from you than by diagnostics.’
‘Oh really’, gulped Rewton, ‘I.. I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘I agree’, replied Isaac, ‘Communication through sound waves has revealed a lot to me over
the last week. Even so, there will come a time when we have discovered all there is to know
via this method. At some point we will need to reverse engineer you. Goodbye.’
Isaac stood and departed, leaving Rewton alone and very worried indeed.
‘Think man, think’, said Rewton to himself, biting his fingernails as his cigarette cravings
hit hard.
He can lie, he knew that. Isaac, and presumably all Illusians seemed to find it very hard to
tell the difference between the truth and a lie. They probably never lied to each other, he
could see it, in such a well organised society.
Rewton thought back to the conversation’s he had had over the last week with his interrogator.
‘I really ,really don’t like the idea of being reverse engineered.’
He thought over all the conversations he had had with Isaac, surely there was something he
could use.
He leaned over and opened a ration pack. There were some biscuits inside, they didn’t taste
great but they reminded him of his childhood. They were called ‘Berty’s Originals’ although
he had no idea why. They were sort of star shaped and looked a little like a human with either
four arms or wings. When he had been a child they had all said how much the shape of the
biscuits were like little angels...
Rewton smiled, he had had an idea.
Isaac entered to find Rewton had been busy. The human had been drawing on the wall with
foodstuffs, a complicated circular design made from tomato sauce and chocolate spread. The
human sat under it, his legs crossed and his arms held out on his knees, the index finger
of each hand touching the thumb of the same hand. He was emitting a low humming sound.
‘What are you doing Rewton?’, asked the alien.
Rewton opened his eyes and stopped humming,
‘I am communicating with my Berty of course.’
‘What is a Berty?’
‘My guardian angel. It saved me, remember I told you?’
‘Your luck?’
‘Well yes. Now I am asking my Berty to send help for me.’
‘It can do that?’
‘Of course. Bertys are supernatural. They can travel space and time with ease. They are
all powerful.’
‘Is it here? I cannot see it.’, said Isaac scanning the room with his six eyes.
‘Bertys are invisible.’
‘I cannot detect it by any means.’
‘Berty’s are non-corporeal.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Listen’, said Rewton, making it all up as he went along. ‘All humans have two components.
They have a physical component, their body, and a supernatural component, their Bert.’
‘You are faulty.’
‘No. You cannot prove that what I am saying is not true. An invisible, non-corporeal entity
that can travel through space and time to aid its host body cannot be disproved.’
‘You are correct. Please stop communicating with your Berty now.’
‘Too late. I have finished.’
Something occurred to Isaac as he wrestled with the idea of truth and lies,
‘If what you said is true, then why were you the only survivor of the Hermes? Didn't all the
other humans have Bertys?’
Rewton had to think about that , ‘Ah.. they did. They were saved. That is why you found no
human remains.’
‘Yes. Or it could have been because the ship was completely vaporised.’
‘It cannot be proved either way then.’
Isaac paused for a while, possible communicating with its fellow Illusians.
‘Goodbye.’ He said finally and left the room.
Rewton fought the urge to laugh, but let out a big sigh or relief none the less.
He hoped that little performance was enough to keep them interested in him for a while
longer. Whenever the words ‘reverse engineer’ came up next he would make up something else
just as silly.
A week passed, and Isaac did not come to see him. Rewton was beginning to think they had
forgotten him, but finally he got not one but two visitors. One was Isaac, whom he recognised
by his limb configuration and one was an Illusian he didn’t know.
Isaac placed a small machine down on the floor of the room and an image flicked into life.
‘Please watch this.’ ,he instructed.
Rewton saw what looked like the bridge of a star ship with a human sat on a seat close up to
whatever was recording. He looked about in his fifties, was black haired and had a pencil
thin moustache.
An electronic voice said,
‘You are Ambassador Krinn of Terra?’
‘Yes I am.’
‘I am a councillor of the Illusian Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War. You may refer
to me as Jacob.’
‘Right.’, said the human curtly.
‘We have made contact with you to discuss certain things of concern to both of our races.’
‘Go on then.’
‘We wish to discuss the moon on the first system of..’
Here the recording appeared to be cut because it obviously skipped forward. A lot further
forward in fact because Krinn seemed to need a shave, had obviously not slept in a long time
and was nervously smoking a cigarette butt that had nearly gone out.
‘One more question on human biology’, droned on Jacob, ‘Can you confirm that all humans are
part of a pairing between a physical body and a supernatural entity that is both invisible
and non-corporeal and that can travel through space and time.’
‘What?’
‘Known as a Berty?’
‘You’ve lost me there buddy.’
‘Or as a guardian angel.’
Krinn’s face was blank, but then it dawned on him and he smiled, ‘Ohhhh riiiight. Sure guardian
angels. We’ve all got them. Well known fact.’
Rewton watching, had to stuff his fist into his mouth to stop laughing. He felt like if he ever
met Krinn he would give him a kiss.
‘Known to humans perhaps. Illusians are purely physical beings. It has often been a point of
discussion by Illusian philosophers on the subject of the make up of biological beings but we
have never gathered any empirical evidence on the matter. We are beings descended from
machines, we know this, we know who made us, we know the limits of our being. We do not know
the limits of sentient biological beings.’
‘Right, well, you’d better know about the .. ah.. pixies as well. They are like guardian angels
but they are not linked to every human .. they, ah, go around doing good deeds.’
Careful thought Rewton, don’t over do it. But Jacob seemed to be swallowing it.
‘Are pixies like guardian angels?’
‘Very much so’ replied the Ambassador, ‘They serve a similar purpose.’
‘I see, what can you tell us about..’
The recording was cut here. Rewton looked up at Isaac.
‘Well?’, he said.
The other Illusian spoke,
‘This information has made the Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War reconsider its
strategy. We cannot conduct a war against beings that have a supernatural component in
their make up. It has been decided that a cease fire will be offered to your military leaders
and the terms of our surrender will be discussed.’
Rewton went pale and was almost quivering with excitement,
‘Really? And me?’
‘A U.P. ship is already on its way to collect you.’
The unnamed Illusian rose and left the room, Isaac stayed.
‘Really, Isaac? I can go?’
‘Yes. When the J.C.C. got independent verification of Bertys, they decided there were now too
many unknown factors and that pursuing a course of conflict was untenable.’
‘I’m.. I’m amazed.’, said Rewton. He couldn’t believe his story had in effect stopped the
entire war.
‘Be glad. You and I, we do not like to see killing. This is the best for both our races.’
Rewton looked the alien in its six eyes, but could see nothing. No sarcasm or hidden meaning
in his words?
‘Do you.. I mean, you personally, believe everything I said?’
‘Why would I doubt you? What does it serve to make statements that are not true?’
Rewton pulled on his lip, ‘Well, the war’s over for a start.’
‘I think that answers your question admirably then. Please follow me. Would you like to see
the rest of the base before your fellows come to take you away?’
Sometime later Rewton met Ambassador Krinn, as he boarded a diplomatic vessel that was taking
them back to Kochab.
‘Bertys huh?’, grunted the Ambassador.
‘Pixies?’
‘Ha! What can I say? You are the hero of the day though. You’ll have a big reward coming your way.’
Rewton smiled and said, ‘I would trade it all for one of those cigarettes in your top pocket.’
Krinn offered him one and even lit it.
Rewton took a long hard drag and blew a big cloud of smoke up into the gangway.
‘Don’t let the captain catch you smoking here though, he’s pretty old fashioned about that
sort of thin.’
‘Reckon I’ve earned it,’ replied Rewton in between puffs.
‘You think they really fell for it. They believe in Bertys now I mean?’
‘I guess so. But I think one of them, Isaac, was beginning to suspect. But I don’t think he
liked the war, so it suited him. Maybe they would have ended it anyway and I was just in the
right place at the right time.’
‘Maybe that was just your Berty looking out for you?’, smirked the diplomat.
Rewton laughed, ‘You know, my mother always told me never to tell lies.’
‘Well, she’s going to have a hard time swallowing this story I think. Come on, I’ll show you
to your cabin.’
Saturday 22 June 2013
A Land of Trees : Chapter 3 : The Pit - 2005
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Chapter 3 : The Pit
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‘Stay on my left hand side Horace and
keep them off with your spear.’, muttered Bandrax to his companion
as they stood side by side in the crowded arena.
‘Just keep them off, don’t try a
lunge, you will expose yourself. I will kill them with Beefeater. You
just defend us, yes?’
The tall young lads teeth were
chattering with fear.
The crowd were shouting and cheering as
the two young men took the position that Bandrax had described
earlier in the day; a little bit back from the centre, facing the
goblin gate.
The arena had totally changed from the
morning. Instead of a serene, snow blanketed ruin, it was now a
crowded fiery pit. It was so late now, that the sky was completely
dark. The stars were out and a full moon hung over the north stand.
In the crowd, torches and braziers burned to give light and warmth.
Great bronze ferronmen shone their light down onto the arena. These
lamps were as tall as men and gave out shafts of light that lit up
the whole arena. The stone steps of the original building rose up in
staggered tears and this was where the general populace sat or stood.
It could hold ten thousand but generally didn’t get that full.
Tonight there were about four thousand spectators Bandrax estimated.
He had gotten good at estimating the size of crowds.
As the crowd grew more excited, Bandrax
took the time to turn around in a complete circle to take in
everything. At his back was the covered seating area where the people
with a bit more money sat. This included rich merchants and local
nobleman. Bandrax noted that Baron Kauffman, the commissioner of the
city watch, and Lord Commander Wren of the Kings Garrison were both
here tonight, with pretty young ladies on their arms. The men
despised each other and sat as far apart as possible. Russon Cutler,
the black hearted squire of Lord Herrias Herrasos was also here, as
he always was, sat in his usual spot. He was the arena's manager.
Just then he noticed that the young
lady sitting next to the Lord Commander was signalling him. Bandrax
glanced at Cutler who gave him a curt nod of permission.
Removing his helmet and tucking it
under his arm, Bandrax approached the lady who leaned down over the
edge of the wooden palisade and dropped a green silk scarf down to
him. The crowd loved this and gave a loud roar of bawdy approval.
The lady giggled and hid her face behind her hands. She looked very
pretty to the young fighter, if a little on the plump side.
Bandrax heard Lord Wren laugh and say,
‘This isn’t a tourney, Bernice! You
think this young criminal wants your favour?’
But Bandrax held the scarf aloft much
to the happiness of the crowd and then tied it around his neck.
The Lord Commander called over to
Squire Cutler,
‘Your man thinks it’s a tourney!’
and laughed again.
Cutler returned a nod and a forced
smile. Bandrax reflected that if Cutler could be anywhere it would
not be running an arena, but he was Lord Herrasos’ man and had to
do as he had been bid.
Returning to his place beside
Horace' he stood and awaited his fate. The snow on the arena floor
was marked with hoof prints, scruff and claw mark. There had already
been a fight and the ground was in places stained red where blood had
spilled.
Suddenly there was a fan fair of
trumpets and several drums took up a quick beat. The drums beat
faster and faster, until with a flourish, they abruptly stopped and
the goblin gate swung open, its great iron hinges groaning and its
chains rattling as it moved.
A gang of fimpin rushed out into the
arena floor making the crowd roar with excitement. Taking a step
forward Bandrax quickly estimated their strength. There were six of
them, all armed with rusty swords. They were gaunt with hunger, but
still quite fit. They still wore the black torn rags that fimpin
favoured, and their long yellow snouts sniffed at the air from under
their shaggy manes of hair. They did not seem to have a leader but
they edged towards the pit fighters slowly. None of them seemed to
want to be the one in front.
Bandrax reached up to his helmet with
his left hand and tugged at the fox's tail on his helmet for luck.
This drew a cheer from his supporters in the crowd. Many of the
fighters that had been in the arena became favourites with the people
of Korismalle. They became personalities in the way only sportsmen
could, and their various merits in the arena were often a source of
endless conversation in the taverns and rum shops. There had once
been a fighter called Coal-black Charlie, another of King Woads
guardsmen who had disgraced himself. He had been a well trained
warrior and had beaten everything that Cutler could find to throw at
him. His crowning glory being when he had killed three white bears,
which had been shipped down all the way from Vegas. He had eventually
won his freedom back, when his king had sat in the arena on one
occasion and watched him fight.
King Woad had been heard to remark,
‘Black Charlie is a terrible
murderer, but he makes good use of a sword.’
And with that the fighter was freed and
went back to Woad Hall with the King and was not seen in Korismalle
again.
Since then there had been many
contenders, in the minds of the populace of Korismalle for the crown
of ‘the next Coal-black Charlie’. It was said that if he earned
glory with one daring fight then ‘the Red Fox’ might be that man.
Archers from above the goblin gate
fired a few arrows into the ground at the back of the fimpins feet to
spur them on a little and warily they moved towards the pit fighters.
Fimpin were by their nature cunning creatures and disliked open
combat, preferring to ambush their enemies under the cover of the
magical mists that their shaman could summon.
Suddenly one of them let loose a shrill
, ululating battle cry and charged the two men, and the other five
fell in behind.
‘Remember, you defend, I attack,
right Horace?’
A steaming stream of piss flowed down
the terrified lads leg.
Bandrax began to swing his flail in
wide circles, up high and behind his head. This was a favoured tactic
of warriors who used such weapons as it disguised its length.
‘Meet his charge Horace!’
Horace held up his shield more in
reflexive terror than in tactics but it slowed down the first fimpin
whose sword slash thumped down on the wooden shield.
In a sudden swoop, Bandrax took a step
forward and brought the flail down on the exposed fimpin. The flail
caught it full in the chest and physically lifted the creature from
the ground and flung it off to the side. Blood splattered everywhere
and rained down on both the men. Horace let out a startled yelp as a
gobbet of bloody flesh hit him square in the face. The ragged remains
of the first fimpin flopped over in one last spasm, then lay still.
But the lads had no time to take this in as the other five were now
upon them. The crowd were cheering and shouting, but Bandrax was now
turning everything off but the fight. This would be a dangerous
melee, fimpin made nasty opponents and it remained to be seen if
Horace would be of any use.
The fimpin started to circle the men,
trying to get behind them. Bandrax had stopped swinging his flail and
stood with it in his right hand ready to swing.
‘Back to back Horace!’
They circled one another for a while,
looking for openings. The lads stood back to back, their cold breath
blowing out in clouds.
A fimpin lunged in at Horace making him
yelp and stumble back. Bandrax stumbled forward making two of the
fimpin lunge in with stabs. He caught one with the haft of his flail
but the other was aimed at his breadbox. Bandrax turned and caught
the blow on his breastplate, which made a metallic screech as the
blade scored the metal. As quick as a cat though, he saw the
advantage and swept his fail down on the head of one of his attackers
as they tripped over each other trying to get out of his way. Its
head disappeared in red ruin and the decapitated corpse slumped to
the ground. The remaining four fimpin attacked all at once. Bandrax
got in behind Horace’s shield and kept them at bay with the
swooping of his flail.
The four charged the two men and one of
them inexplicably impaled itself on Horace’s spear, the head
sinking deep into its chest. But the dying creature grabbed the haft
and wrenched it out of the startled lads grasp. One of the others
leapt on him. As this happened Bandrax felled one of the others with
a terrible downward swoop, driving the creature into the ground in a
bloody heap. But the other leapt over the haft of his weapon and with
its sword forgotten grabbed at his throat, sending them both to the
ground.
Now both men wrestled the remaining two
fimpin on the ground. Bandrax tried to get the snarling creature off
him, but his hands were slick with blood. Everything was soaked in
blood. The fimpin opened its long snout to reveal long rows of black
needle-like teeth, dripping with saliva. It had every intention of
sinking its teeth into his throat. Bandrax had his arm up to its neck
in protection and pushing its left arm away he put his hand up in a
push. The fimpin's grip on him was too strong though. He then
realised, in a silly detail that it made no sense to realise at this
time, that the creature he was fighting was female. He could feel its
breasts as he tried to push it off him. In an even more bizarre
realisation he admitted that they felt quite nice, and as unpleasant
as the beast was, he had to face up to the fact that youthful as he
was, this was the first time he had been so close to a pair of
breasts.
But he wasn’t going to let this
fimpin wench kiss him, it would take away half his face. It was
snarling and drooling on him, moving so quickly he could hardly keep
it off. Its snout was so long, he had to defend himself against that
as well as its two hands. They rolled over in the snow, back and
forth several times, neither gaining the advantage. In desperation he
realised that he would have to let it nibble on him so that he could
use the hand on its chest to hold down its free arm. He would likely
lose his nose, but it seemed the only way to get it off.
He couldn’t build up the courage, but
soon it would be able to bite him anyway, the thing was frenzied and
it was only a matter of time before its maddened strength bested him.
Just then a shadow passed over them and
the beast was suddenly transfixed and let out a gasp of pain. Bandrax
rolled it off him to see Horace standing over them both with the
spear in his hand. He had driven it into the fimpins back.
Standing up he gave the lad a pat on
the shoulder and gasping for breath he said ‘You saved me!’
Horace had throttled the other fimpin
but had been badly bitten, his face was a mask of blood and he was
almost gibbering in shock. A flap of skin hung from his cheek
revealing the muscle and bone beneath. That will leave a scar when
it’s sewn up thought Bandrax, still strangely rational.
‘I..I.. this is a nightmare..’,
Horace stuttered.
‘Well, it isn’t over yet.’
Horace hadn’t noticed, but Bandrax
heard the drums rolling again, which meant that they had a moment
or so before the goblin gate would open once more.
Looking round he took in the work they
had done here. Six bloody corpses lay around them, one still with a
spear in its back. Bandrax tugged it out and handed it to his
companion.
‘You’ll need this again.’
The melee had moved them to the front
and to the side of the arena so taking Horace by the shoulder he lead
them back to the favoured position at the back and tugging once again
on the fox tail he awaited the gates.
Snow had started to fall heavily now.
It must have started during the fight and he had not noticed. The
crowd in the parts of the arena that was not covered pulled their
cloaks above their heads or drew nearer to the ferronmen. The great
bronze lamps sizzled and steamed as the snow hit them. There was
little wind, and already the corpses were being covered in a frosting
of snow.
The drum roll ended and with a roar the
crowd heralded the next arrival with glee.
‘Great, a bear.’, muttered Bandrax,
wiping snow from his eyes, ‘A kodiak.’
‘Look at the size of it!’, gasped
Horace in terror.
The huge shaggy creature lumbered
forward then reached the centre of the arena and started snuffling
the corpses. It then took a big bite out of one with a bone breaking
crunch. But fimpin meat appeared not to be very appetising as it spat
it out in disgust then rose up on it hind legs to let loose a
dissatisfied bellow. This made the crowd laugh, but Squire Cutler was
not in the mood for laughter and waved a signal to the archers.
Three arrows zipped down into the arena
and one of them bit into the kodiaks hairy rump. With a roar the bear
leapt round to lash out at its unseen attacker with its huge claws,
but all it saw were the two men a short distance away from it.
Snarling, it lumbered into a charge at
the men. Every man's instinct is to run at the sight of a charging
bear, which is exactly what they both did, each in the opposite
direction. Boos and hisses came from the crowd and a few laughs.
The bear didn’t hesitate for a
moment, it gave chase after Horace. His long legs gave him a good
turn of speed, but he could not out run a bear and in only a few
moments, barely enough time for Horace to cross half the arena, the
bear was upon him. It lashed out and sent him flying to the ground,
and then rearing up it roared in anger before plunging down on its
victim.
But Bandrax was back and with a running
leaping swing he brought his flail down on the beasts back. It moved
as the blow came in so only one of the flails spiked heads caught it,
but it was enough to make the bear back off in a snarling and
spitting series of back peddling lunges. It left a trail of blood
behind it.
Bandrax looked down at Horace. The poor
boys hauberk had offered some protection from the kodiaks claws but a
big gash was gaping open on his right side. He was very pale and
muttering incoherently. Bandrax dropped his flail and picked up the
spear, it was a better weapon against bears.
He stood before his fallen friend as
the bear charged once again. This time however he didn’t flee but
stood side on and braced the spear against his right foot, the spear
pointing up in the air.
The beast was at full speed when it
reached him, and had no time to stop as the spear was suddenly
pointed at it and in the next moment the creature's weight drove the
spear's point deep into its neck. But its weight also kept it coming
and with his hands raised in terror Bandrax was suddenly engulfed in
a great mountain of hairy, bloody flesh.
The crowd went silent. The bear was
dead, and all they could see of the last fighter was his boots. But
then the whole heap seemed to twitch and then move, and at first to
scattered, confused applause, and then to ecstatic cheers, Bandrax
dragged himself out from under the dead bear.
He looked around the arena for a
moment, a stunned expression on his face.
But then he heard the cheers of ‘Fox!
Fox! Fox!’, and he raised his fists in triumph.
Shaking his head as if remembering
something he went over to where Horace lay. The lad was alive, but he
didn’t look very good. Bandrax picked him up and took him over to
the Spital Gate.
Mary had watched the whole fight from
the smaller portal into the arena known as the Spital Gate. Tears had
been running down her face for most of the fight but now it was over.
She had been in the arena since the beginning of the evenings events.
She was dressed in a stout simple frock, with a heavy apron worn over
the front. Under the apron she wore a child’s smock, with the
sleeves rolled up. As always she wore her wizard’s hat. She had
already patched up a stunned and bruised bull fighter, so her black
bag was already open.
‘Open the gate please!, she begged
the guard that stood here, ‘Please!’
The guard laughed and unbarred the
portal, then swung it open.
As Bandrax carried in his fallen
comrade, the guard called to him over the noise of the crowd,
‘Good brave work lad, you brought the
house down.’
The spital gate guard was an old man
called Jilly, and was one of the more friendly ones. He wore a mail
shirt, helmet and a short sword at his belt. He had a long grey
beard which he wore tucked into his shirt, much to the amusement of
the other guards.
Bandrax said nothing, but put Horace
down on a low bench, then sat down on its end himself. He ripped off
his helmet and threw it on the floor then put his head in his hands.
Mary examined Horace’s wounds,
tutting over his bloody face, but seeing that the more serious wound
was in the lad’s side.
She unlaced the side of his hauberk and
flipped it over. Taking her sharpest sheers she cut away his jerkin
and undershirt, the blood pouring from the whole messy wound onto the
sawdust on the floor.
‘Oh no’, sighed Mary, ‘There is
nothing I can do here.’
His whole side, under the ribs was
open. His entrails were in shreds, his intestines ruptured.
She took his hand, and looked at his
face. She knew his next few breaths would be his last, but his eyes
were still wide open.
‘I am sorry’ she said as she stood
over him, ‘You are going to die.’
Bandrax gave a shudder from his end
of the bench but didn’t move his head from his hands.
‘Priest.’, murmured the poor lad.
‘There is no priest here, I’m very
sorry, but I can say whatever words you want. What God do you
follow?’
‘Etruna.’
‘Oh, I don’t know her words...’,
said the little torm. Horace tried to move his other hand but barely
managed to raise it.
Bandrax came over and knelt by them and
said,
‘I know them.’, then clearing his
throat and trying to take the tremble from his throat he began.
‘Yeh, though here I die, I fear not
the soil,
and the earth, for you will be with me.
With thy leaf and thy blade, you will
Protect me from those that mean harm.
Return me to thy embrace, and with thy
Gentle kiss lay me to sleep in greener
halls
And sweeter .. and sweeter..’
Bandrax let out a sob, then said,
‘He’s dead. He would want to be
buried if he followed Etruna.’
‘Fat chance of that,’ said the gate
guard who had come over to witness the lad’s death, ‘He will get
the pyre as you all do.’
He did not say this unkindly, Jilly the
spital gate guard saw a lot of death.
Just then, at the other end of the low
stone chamber the iron bound door opened and three figures walked it.
The first was the lady called Beatrice. Mary turned to look at her.
Beatrice must have been no older than sixteen and was very well
dressed in a pale green gown, with an ermine cloak on her shoulder
for warmth. She wore an expensive looking gold and sapphire necklace
and her hair was held up in a delicate net. The hood of her cloak was
thrown back. She was pretty enough, in the way that all young girls
were pretty, but somewhat on the plump side and on one of her rosy
red cheeks she had a large black mole.
The next person that came in was Lord
Commander Wren. He was a young man by the standards of his rank, not
yet forty, his long hair was still black although his thick black
beard had one or two hints of grey in it. He had a somewhat
exasperated expression on his face at the moment, probably due to
being dragged down into the bowels of the arena. By reputation he was
a competent commander and kept the Kings Garrison under control well
enough. But he was not shy of punishing offenders and it was
said that any criminal or ne’er-do-well took up by the garrison
would have a worse time than if they had fallen into the hands of the
watch. The watch, by legal decree, had to give everyone a trial, fair
or otherwise, and the magistrate Lord Herrasos, did not see the value
of having any man executed. He preferred to get some use out of them
either in the galleys or in the arena. Wren was in the pay of the
king however and his men were all salaried. They had also been given
the power to execute anyone for many and varied crimes and often
exercised the right.
The watch saw the garrison as a bunch
of cut-throats, out to have a good time and to make the most of their
stay in Korismalle until they were moved elsewhere.
They treated the citizens of the town
with complete contempt and many of them were terribly cruel.
The garrison saw the watch as a group
of petty young noblemen who cared more about extorting money from the
thieves’ guilds and the dockside whore-houses and occasionally
going on enthusiastic, but amateurish night time patrols of the Tomsk
Quarter.
As it happened, they were both right,
thought Mary to herself, she would not give a bucket of piss for
either one of them.
The final person to enter was Russon
Cutler, a man that Mary despised. She saw him as a lick-spittle
jobs-worth with all the grace of a weasel. All he ever thought of was
how to further himself, and how to please his master, Lord Herrasos.
He was short and as thin as a blade. He was well presented in warm
winter clothes, with a black doublet and grey Bellavian cloak he was
certainly dressed the part. But his gaunt unsmiling face and high
forehead topped in a razor edge widow’s peak gave a different
impression.
Bernice seemed to be initially full of
enthusiasm but was suddenly star struck in front of Bandrax who
merely watched the procession blankly.
‘Oh! The blood! You are covered in
blood!’, she gasped and rushed to the young man, seeming to ignore
Mary and the corpse of Horace.
Squire Cutler stepped up and slightly
awkwardly said,
‘Ah, .. Lady Bernice, may I present
Bandrax.’
Bandrax performed a somewhat painful
bow due to his injuries.
Lady Bernice seemed to be having
difficulty finding anything to say. She must have wanted to come and
see her champion but was now overcome with passion and probably
confused by the stink of blood down here. She held a scented kerchief
to her face to hide her blushing cheeks and fend off the butcher shop
smell.
‘Do they have someone to attend to
your injuries?’
When that was met with silence, Cutler
snapped,
‘Speak up lad.’
This was enough to bring Bandrax back
from whatever realm he had drifted off to.
‘So sorry my lady, I have only a few
scratches and cuts, but Mary here is of great service as a healer.’,
and he gestured down at Mary who was standing nearby. Mary
selfconsciously wiped the blood from her hands on her apron and
curtsied.
‘But such a young girl here?’,
replied the young lady in confusion.
‘I am a torm, if it please you, your
ladyship, and a woman grown.’ said Mary and curtsied again.
‘Oh but this is terrible, Squire
Cutler, this is awful!’ gasped the maid, then she blurted,
‘You have a lovely accent Bandrax
where are you from?’
‘Laval, your ladyship.’
‘A poor boy from Laval? You can’t
let him die in the arena Squire Cutler, you can’t!’
‘But it is the law my lady. They are
all dreadful murderers and rapists.’
Beatrice looked up at Bandrax for a
moment.
‘Really?’, she stuttered, ‘Would
he rape me?’
‘If there was no men of a higher
quality here, in a heart beat your ladyship, don’t doubt it for a
second.’ replied Squire Cutler.
Lady Beatrice nearly swooned and held
her kerchief up to her nose and mouth to gasp into.
I think she quite likes the idea of
Bandrax raping her, thought Mary wickedly.
At this point Lord Commander Wren
stepped forward and addressed Bandrax,
‘Well he doesn’t look like a rapist
to me Cutler. What crime did you commit lad?’
‘I stole, your lordship.’
‘What did you steel?’
‘Apples’
Wren guffawed in a burst of laughter.
‘You mean to tell me, Cutler’, he
said the name ‘Cutler’ the same way he might have said the word
‘snake’.
‘You mean to tell me,’ he repeated,
‘that your lord is sentencing good strong lads like this to death
for stealing apples? And what of this poor soul?’, he gestured at
Horace’s remains, ‘What did he do? Steal a handful of berries I
suppose?’
‘He stole twenty otters your
lordship.’, said Bandrax with a hint of defiance in his voice.
‘Good lad, I can see you are not
scared of me. After what I saw you do to that bear I should think you
are not scared of anything. Kauffman is a fool if he is putting lads
like this in the arena to die. Give him a sword and a toad on his
tunic and he would make a fine soldier, Gods know we have need of
them.’
‘Can we take him? Yes make him a
soldier! Please Bertie!’, said young lady Beatrice and clapped her
hands together, her kerchief still in them.
‘Would that I could, my dear, but
Herrasos would not give him up for all the wine in Ferron I am sure.
The lad must be quite a crowd puller.’
‘Come my dear, I have seen enough of
this nonsense,’, and with that he pulled her away.
‘Say you will wear my scarf always
Bandrax!’, she gasped as she was lead away through the door which
the guard opened for them.
Mary heard Wren laugh, ‘He will have
to wash the bear blood out of it first!’
Squire Cutler gave them both a scowl
and turned to leave as well.
But suddenly Mary piped up,
‘Excuse me my lord!’
Cutler turned and looked down at her,
as if he had just heard a squirrel squeak at him.
‘I’m no lord. What do you want?’
‘It has been nearly two years now!
Will you let Bandrax go?’
Cutler looked from her to the lad,
‘Let him go? After that little
performance with that oaf Bertie Wren, you are lucky I don’t have
his head. But Wren is right, he is a crowd pleaser, so here he
stays.’
And with a flick of his cloak he turned
and left the room. As he left, Jilly, who had stood at the back of
the room during all this, no more noticed than one of the benches
said,
‘Cheer up Mary, maybe the King will
free him if he ever comes to the arena again.’
Mary was about to reply when she
noticed that the crowd was roaring again, another fight was underway.
She took a roll of canvas from the floor by the bench and covered
Horace’s body, then went over to the portal.
Looking through the bars of the gate
she saw three men fighting a gang of goblins. She would have more
work soon enough. The gate guard also came over to watch the fight.
Without looking over his shoulder he
said,
‘You had better get yourself over to
the tea shack lad.’, addressing Bandrax, ‘Go and get something
hot in you, if you feel up to it?’
Bandrax unbuckled his breastplate, then
the rest of his armour and left it on the bench. As he was about to
leave Mary tugged at his sleeve then quickly handed something to him.
It was a tiny vial of green liquid with a note wrapped round it. He
gave her a puzzled look, but she hissed at him and shoed him away. He
quickly tucked the vial into his shirt and opening the door left the
room.
As he made his way to the tea shack,
through one of the many tunnels under the arena, he passed the guard
called Nurl. He gave him a nod and Nurl replied to this by punching
him in the stomach as hard as he could. Bandrax dropped to his knees
and gasped for breath.
‘Don’t ever cheek me again lad.’
snarled the guard who then went on his way.
After he had his breath back Bandrax
checked himself over. He would have a bruise after that blow, but the
vial was still intact.
Dawn was breaking when Mary finally got
home to her tiny rented cottage in the Tomsk Quarter. Today was her
day off, she always had a day off after an evening at the arena. She
had cooked enough food to keep the Lost Goose going for a day or two
and Gertrude would fill in for her if required.
Her stomach was tied in a knot though
and she wondered if she would get any sleep at all. She opened the
door to her cottage and took off her boots in the hall. She put a big
kettle of water on the stove and lit it. When the water had boiled
she would have a bath. The cottage had been made for torms, there was
a whole row of them in this street, terraced all the way down a back
alley by the docks. It was half the size of a normal house, but the
rent wasn’t half the price, Mary often grumbled. Even the furniture
was rented, but with two jobs Mary’s pantry was well stocked. She
pealed off a few layers of clothing and sat by the stove with her
feet on a stool. She took off her red and black striped stockings and
wiggled her naked toes by the stove. With the fire banked up it was
very snug in the little kitchen and she even took off her pointed hat
and put it on the table. She took the pins from the bun of hair on
her head, and let her long blonde curls fall down over her shoulders.
But even then she couldn’t relax
fully and she bit at her nails nervously. Well, the deed was done,
something that she had planned for months was about to happen. If
Bandrax followed the instructions in the note, then.. well, the dice
would be cast, and whatever happened, both their lives would be very
different.
A little later she had her bath, then
changed into a nightgown and got into her tiny bed in the only other
room in the cottage. Her eyes were still wide open though. The only
person that knew she lived here was Hanz, and he would never betray
her. All her belongings were packed up, ready for a sudden departure.
All the furniture was rented with the cottage, and the landlord would
be happy enough for her to leave mysteriously as it meant he could
keep the deposit.
The bedroom had no windows so it was
perfectly dark when the door was shut, but she knew it would now be
morning outside.
Still she could not sleep and she
reflected on her friendship with Bandrax. They had both arrived at
the arena at much the same time. Mary had just come in on the coach
from Tormwood and Bandrax had just arrived from the jail in Homderi.
As is often the case when two new
people arrive at a long established institution they were drawn to
each other. In between Mary’s various jobs in the arena and
Bandraxs training they spent their free time together in the
refractory or sat on some ruined steps in the training yard if the
weather was good. The tea shack was only for pit fighters and so Mary
never went in there, and the guards would send them packing if they
saw them, the nasty ones would anyway, but they always had time
together. They were both also very young, the youngest ones in the
whole place by far. Bandrax was only sixteen when he arrived at the
arena, but already a strapping young man, and Mary was only a year
older. They would spend many hours together talking about their lives
and families and they had become the firmest of friends.
She knew that Bandrax was often teased
about his friendship with the tiny fressle and often the jests could
be very lewd. But initially Bandraxs affable nature and friendliness
had countered the jibes, and then as his fame as a warrior on the
arena grew the other fighters showed him much more respect and the
jests went from being nasty to being the kind of ribbing expected
between friends.
They also made great plans for what
they wanted to do when Bandrax had finished his two years at the
arena. Mary had never planned to stay in Korismalle so long. She had
wanted to go to Millwood to meet her mentor, Jendix L’Noir, but her
friendship with Bandrax had kept her around so she had rented a
cottage and got another job at the Lost Goose.
They wanted to go to Millwood together
so that Mary could continue her studies and Bandrax could find his
sister.
Well, it looked like they would never
let Bandrax out, he had already beaten the odds by surviving so long.
But the bear last night had nearly killed him, as well as poor
Horace, and this had galvanised Mary into action. The plan she had
been formulating for months, for an escape, had been put into motion
and now it was too late to stop it.
Just when she thought she would never
get to sleep, she did.
Rostov felt a thousand times better
after a bath in a hot tub and a change of clothes. He was now dressed
in a simple white robe, his mail and travel clothes being hung up in
a wardrobe in his room.
The coven was one of perhaps hundreds,
certainly dozens of such abodes that hid within the confines of the
Great Forest. The forest itself covered the whole of Nillamandor,
from Ertia and Ferron to the south and Tomsk and Lodz in the north.
To the north east it became a darker and more haunted place, the
Norob Forest, although it was all the same forest. It was possible to
travel from Port Mohoa in Ferron to Kolopa in Vegas and never see the
light of the sun. The hands of man had cut down large areas and
brought civilisation to the western coast of Nillamandor, but the
interior was still wild. There was a single bastion of men, a town
called Che, that dwelt in the heart of the forest, which was also a
halfway point on the highway between the northern kingdoms and those
of the south. Other than that the land was a wilderness. A deep
forest inhabited by goblins, fimpin, witches, undead and trolls. Here
also, the fair forest folk had their home. There was said to be half
a hundred pocket-kingdoms in the forest. Most no more than a few
hundred acres of woods that were stoutly defended by the folk. Often
they would trade and swap gossip with nearby human lands, but they
would rarely divulge the location of their cities.
And finally you had the habitats of
those that had no desire to be ruled by any kingdom, be it man, the
fair folk, or the naxeme. Free folk who valued their privacy. Of
these you would find various forts, lodges and covens. Shaman,
priests and druids.
Druids perhaps, although any census was
impossible, were the most common of coven makers in the forest, as by
their nature they were drawn to remote wild places.
Rostov doubted he could even point to
the spot where his coven was on a map. No one ever came here by any
mundane means. It was a secluded forest valley, somewhere in the
central highlands. The valley was locked in snow and the lodge itself
was covered in a ten foot drift. When he had arrived in the
thaumaugercella he had created quite a stir. Luckily there were a few
people around. Sometimes there was no one here with the ablity to
rouse him and he would have lain there unconscious for hours.
He was now ready to answer questions so
he went to the warm-room, where the rest of them would be. In the
summer, meetings were held in a small glade by the stream, but in the
winter they preferred to meet by the fire.
‘Get out my chair you.’ Rostov said
to a small black bear, a pigmy-kodiak that was sat in a comfy but
very ragged arm chair.
The bear grumbled and plopped down onto
the floor and then tried to settle down at the hearth where a brace
of wolves and three more bears already lay.
With a sigh of pleasure Rostov sank
into his chair. It had been a while, but it was as comfortable as he
remembered, if somewhat covered in animal hairs. That was one of the
drawbacks of being a druid he reflected, you are constantly picking
hairs off your clothes from moulting animals.
There were four other people in the
room, some of the other members of his coven. Some of them were even
in the fellowship as Rostov was, the Heroes of Kaladorn, but not all
of them were.
Wherever their allegiance lay however,
they were druids first and foremost.
The first of the people in the room was
Xomano, a fraskan from Tormwood, barely three feet high and dressed
in a purple tunic and hose. Her brown hair was tied back in a bun.
She was about forty years old, but looked younger. She was a little
plump, but a lot of out door living had stopped her running to fat as
so many of the females of her race did. There were a few lines on her
face, but they were mainly from laughter, and the amusing little
frown she sometimes made when she was vexed. She gave Rostov a
friendly smile as he sat down, they were the oldest and closest of
friends. They had joined the coven at much the same time and were of
much the same rank. Druids never bore any official titles, but it was
always clear in each of their minds who were the more senior.
Xomano came down from her chair and
poured Rostov a cup of brown-leaf tea from the kettle by the fire
which he took with thanks.
The next person present, sat by the
window although he could see nothing out of it for the snowdrift
outside was Jalavan, another of Rostov's close friends and an elf
from some far flung pocket-kingdom to the east. Young by elven
standards and the most junior of the druids here, he preferred to
spend his time almost exclusively in the wilderness and rarely
ventured back to the coven so it was a delight to see him here. He
had short dark-gingery hair and a good crop of freckles across his
nose. He was handsome in a boyish sort of way although he was a lot
older then he looked. Rostov looked forward to chatting with him
about old times when they had a moment, Jalavan had missed the whole
western campaign and the journeys they had made on the Windrider. He
would be most anxious to swap news. He would have undoubtedly heard
much from Xomano and Hfestos, but he would want to here Rostov’s
tales as well.
The two remaining people in the room
also sat by the fire. They were male and female elves from the south
who spoke with strange accents. Hfestos, the male could almost be
called human now, he spent so much time in the kingdoms of men. He
too was a member of the same company as Rostov and was a great
adventurer in his own right. He owned a splendid suit of green mail
which he wore in battle, with a helmet crowned with antlers on his
head. Currently however he wore a simple woollen shirt and leather
britches. He too had dark-red hair but lacked the freckles of
Jalavan. His skin was a lot darker as the members of his race from
the south often were. He had a very strong jaw line and although he
was possessed of a sense of humour, did not often smile.
Finally there was Lildariel, the female
southron, and the most senior of the coven. The Druids did not
recognise leaders as such, but if they were to have one, it would be
her. She was said to be over four hundred years old, although as with
all of her race she did not look it. She did have white hair but this
gave her a look of ethereal beauty rather than age. Like all the
women of her kin she had delicate features and slight points on the
tips of her ears.
So there they were, one man, one torm
and three elves. Half of the coven were present, the others would be
away either in the wilderness or attending to other affairs. Shalomi
had not been seen in years although he had been heard of recently. He
was helping raise the second generation of his family in his home
land. The ancient elf was older still than Lildariel although not as
senior in rank. It was said that he was so in touch with Etruna that
he was already half tree. The other four were most likely on errands
or missions from Lildariel thought Rostov. They were all elves from
her kingdom and the most loyal to her.
The coven’s entire Heroes of Kaladorn
contingent was represented here by Rostov, Xomano and Hfestos. All
three of them had been on the Waverider and had adventured together
in the west for the last year. Lildariel disapproved of outside
allegiances but she could do nothing, druids obeyed no rules other
than those of Etruna.
Rostov took a sip of his tea. No one
was in any rush to break the silence, but Jalavan came over to the
fire to warm himself and addressing Rostov said,
‘So, you must have had a real
adventure judging by the state of you, Uncle.’
Rostov was certainly not kin to any
elves and the jest of calling him Uncle was so old they had both
forgotten how it had originated.
‘Aye, I was on my way to Stonebridge,
you know, where the Heroes have set up after we got back from the
west.’
‘Hmm, and you decided to call in on
Soora.’, said Xomano knowingly.
‘Well yes, it’s been a year since I
saw her.’
Jalavan laughed compassionately, ‘Poor
Uncle Rostov, his heart has never left Stonebridge!’
‘Yes well, ‘, continued the human,
‘She had trouble with her apple tree so I took a look.’
Jalavan was not the sort of person to
pass up a jest about such a strange statement but Xomano waved a hand
at the mischievous elf by the fire to be silent while Rostov talked.
‘And that lead me eastwards. There
seems to be a sickness in the forest around Gnarlwold. I was attacked
by wolves.’
‘Attacked by volves. Zay ver not
vargs?’, asked Lildariel in her heavy accent.
‘Wolves yes, they were not very
friendly. They treed me. But I improvised a gate and escaped.’
Rostov described the events in the
forest a little more, and his imaginative arrival in the
thaumaugercella. Jalavan was laughing by this time.
‘I think you should write that one up
Rostov. It was certainly a very different interpretation of how the
spell should be cast!’
‘It worked though.’ replied the man
with a smile.
Rostov settled a little more into his
seat and balanced his cup on his stomach.
Just then, Hfestos made his fingers
into a steeple and leant forward as if he might say something and
everyone looked at him in expectation.
But then it became apparent he meant to
say nothing. They were speaking Bellavian, or at least a pidgin
version of it, which was the lingua-franka used throughout the
continent. Hfestos’ native tongue was so different from anything
even Lildariel knew though that he had great difficulty speaking
anything else although he understood Bellavian well enough. Jalavan
often joked that Hfestos spoke barely ten words a year and he was
probably right.
‘Gnarlvold is a problem.’ said
Lildariel, ‘The kingdom does not treat the forest well.’
‘Never mind the trees, they don’t
treat their people well.’ came Rostov’s reply. This was not the
first time they had had this conversation. Elves tended to be much
more conservative druids than humans.
‘The kingdoms ov men come and go. The
forest endures.’
‘Well, I think Gnarlwold is going the
same way as Norob,’ said Xomano, ‘I think we should involve the
Heroes.’
Lildariel gave the little torm an arch
look, although she did not deem to give her opinion on what she saw
as little more than a band of outlaws.
‘We should look to Etruna, she will
give us an answer.’ said the elven druidess.
‘Why aren’t you in Styke anyway
Xommy? I thought you meant only to stay here a short while before
going to the tower in Stonebridge?’ asked Rostov of the torm.
When the ship carrying them had arrived
at Millwood, and the band had gone their separate ways, the last
Rostov had seen of Xomano and Hfestos was when they had returned to
the coven by means of a magical portal. Rostov had at that point no
intention of coming back himself.
‘As was my intent. But I have found
too much to do here’, she replied, but Rostov took her meaning well
enough. What Xomano meant was that Lildariel was here and was finding
them things to do.
‘It doesn’t really matter anyway,
nothing will be happening for a while. I think everyone will want to
get a breather and spend some of their ill gotten gains.
And I’m sure Necellia will be just as
happy without me interfering, you know what I’m like. I would only
be there five minutes before I wanted to run the place.
And Brond said we should all rest up,
no one will have anything to do for a while’
‘Well, maybe I have found something
to do.’, said Rostov.
‘There is no need to involve the
Naxeme.’ said Lildariel curtly.
At this point Hfestos said something in
an elven tongue and Lildariel replied. After a brief exchange they
both went silent.
Not even Jalavan had understood the
southern tongue they had spoken.
‘Well, what did Hef have to say?’
‘He says we should talk to Brond, but
then, he would say that.’ grumbled the druidess, ‘Hfestos spends
too much time with those people.’
Whatever Lildariel might think,
whenever there was a battle and glory to be won, Hfestos was usually
the first to answer the call. He never missed a campaign and was a
great warrior in battle. He was no tactician however, most of the
planning was done by Brond, Rostov, Xomano and the other captains.
Rostov let out a deep sigh, with the
different factions at the coven always at war, it was no wonder he
rarely came back here. Lildariel was much more of the old guard and
did not see the need for contact with the civilised nations and had
no desire even to hear about things north of Lunaria. Although he had
never heard it expressed Rostov even sometimes wondered if she
approved of non-elven races joining the faith. Still, she could not
argue with Etruna, if She chose a human or a torm then that was Her
will.
Xomano broke the silence and said,
‘We can’t single handedly overrun
Gnarlwold though, we are not an army, but I definitely think I should
go and have a word with Brond. I know where he is as well. He’ll
have gone home.’
Rostov nodded at Xomano, and replied,
‘He won’t be there yet though, nobody can move around as fast as
us. Last I heard he had only just settled the purchase of the tower.
The local council dragged it out for ages.’
‘I don’t care about rotting trees
in Gnarlwold in the slightest little bit, ‘ said Jalavan, ‘But I
would be happy to come with you Uncle, just so I can see that
suicidal naxeme again.’
‘Jalavan,’ interrupted Lildariel,
‘You are as bad as these others, you have not been here in the last
six months. You must attend to your duties first before you go
anywhere. Xomano and Hfestos have a years worth of prayers to our
lady to attend to and the forests around here must be looked to first
before those in some far off place.’
Rostov gave them a wan smile and said,
‘Well, it looks like you chaps are stuck in school for a while, but
I don’t intend to hang around.’
This caused a very pregnant silence. Of
all the druids in the coven, if Lildariel was the most senior, then
second was Rostov, although he never acted like it.
‘You are lucky that Etruna does not
turn her back on you completely, Rostov Ravenwing.’, said Lildariel
finally, and then rising she left the room.
Xomano and the two other elves all
tried to find something else to look at as she left.
‘Don’t antagonise her Rostov, she
is the best of all of us.’ hissed Xomano at the man. The little
torm idolised Lildariel.
‘And she has been making a great deal
of progress here while we have been away,’ she continued.
‘Yes, well, not all to my liking
though.’ returned Jalavan.
‘How so?’, asked Rostov.
Xomano sighed and said, ‘She has been
talking to the Burners once more. It’s the whole re-unification of
the kingdoms thing again. She’s been very busy while we’ve been
away. I love Lildariel with all my heart, and I too wish that the
Great Forest was once a whole nation again as it was hundreds of
years ago, but sometimes I think..’
‘That she’s living in the past?’,
said Jalavan as the torm left her sentence dangling, ‘May as well
say it, it’s what we are all thinking.’
Hfestos, who had been silent throughout
this, stood up, making all the animals in the room bounce up as well.
They knew that the elf was going to go outside to hunt. With wolves
and bears milling around his legs as he left, the taciturn elf said
to them,
‘Joo ar right, Jalavan. Talk to
huh-er before joo leave Roz-tov.’
He then opened the hall door and went
outside, taking all the excited animals with him.
‘Well.’, that’s the last of him
we’ll see today. He will be hunting until night fall.’
As the day wore on, the three friends
swapped tales of their recent adventures and Jalavan told them of the
things he had been up to and what had been happening to the east. In
turn Rostov told of his adventures on the Windrider, and gave more
details about how things had gone with Soora.
Later though, he threw on some warm
clothes and a great grey cloak and went to pray at the old moss
covered stone circle which was the coven’s temple.
He was deep in reflection when
Lildariel arrived, so he didn’t notice her at first. She knelt down
beside him and started to recite some ancient prayers.
Rostov regarded the elven druidess from
the corner of his eye. Lildariel was a great heroine and an
incredibly powerful druid. She was well worthy of his respect. When
she had been a girl, the Great Forest was still home to a single
large elven empire. But Old Bones, the eastern lich-dragon, had laid
waste to much of the west before his eventual defeat by the grey
dragon in the Serpent War. The elven kingdom had fractured into a
hundred besieged pockets, and three hundred years later, the once
proud nation was just a distant memory. During the Great Forest
Kingdoms golden age, the main priest class had been the druids of
Etruna, and each elven city had a temple to the goddess within its
walls. Now most of them were just ruins or no longer existed at all.
Lildariel had been a druidess even
then, and had fought in the Serpent War, and had witnessed dragons
fight in the skies above Nillamandor. She had even been present when
Old Bones had been defeated by the Grey Dragon, and sent home to the
east to lick his wounds and dream of revenge on the west.
What was left of the Kingdom had
fractured but there were still those in the pocket kingdoms and
covens that dreamed of re-unification, so ambassadors often moved
between them, making alliances and forming bonds of marriage. But
year after year another of those who remembered the golden age would
die, or disappear into the forest never to be heard of again and the
younger ones never remembered a time when things were different.
That Lildariel was treating with the
followers of Ignettor, called the Burners, Rostov saw as an ill omen.
Ignettor was a nature god, and the followers of Etruna would
sometimes argue he was a facet of the true nature goddess if it
suited them. But, Ignettor was a god of destruction and renewal, his
followers would be just as likely to burn down a forest as attempt to
nurture it, something that went against every fibre in Rostov’s
being.
The whole thing was borderline heresy,
and besides, the Burners covens were mainly in the north east, a
shade to close to Norob Forest for his liking, den of evil wizards
and necromancers as it was.
Once they had finished they sat on the
alter stone together and talked. Lildariel looked out across the snow
covered glade and said,
‘Xomano will be a great asset now
that she is here, she is a wonderful diplomat. I already can think of
five different places where I can send her. Perhaps she could
reconcile Gravent and Vellorous. It is insanity for two elven,
Etruna-worshiping kingdoms to be at war with each other.’
Lildariels heavy accent turned ‘will’
into ‘vill’ and ‘think’ into ‘sink’.
She continued,
‘Jalavan can occasionally have his
uses, but it is good that Hfestos is here also, as he is unmarried.
Princess Hyellcia of Clovercup has come of age, and that would be a
great match. Clovercup would do much better with a druid as it’s
king. And it’s surely providence that has sent you, we need someone
in Che, and who better than a man to send to a man's city?’
‘Lil..’, began Rostov.
He paused, not knowing what to say. He
looked at her, swinging her legs on the alter stone just as a young
maid would. How did he explain to her that what she once had, the
world that she once knew was long gone, was long gone in fact when
Rostov’s ancestors walked the land. She was making all these plans
for what, perhaps trying to fix something that could never be fixed.
When the Serpent War was fought,
mankind was still chopping at each other with axes. Now they shot at
each other with flintlock rifles and cannons. It was all a dozen life
times ago.
‘Lil, I agree Xomano is a great
diplomat, and Hfestos is unmarried, but I doubt he will marry some
fat buttercup princess. And although I agree Che could use help
rebuilding after the war, I think that I would be serving Etruna
better in Gnarlwold.’
Lildariel sighed,
‘Rostov, I wish you saw Etruna’s
will as clearly as I do. But how could you, with your meagre thirty
years in the world? You keep on dragging half the coven off on
adventurers with that band of naxeme brigands of yours.’
Rostov felt himself getting a little
angry,
‘Perhaps you have forgotten that it
was Xomano that first met Brond in the Hook Vale. I didn’t join
that ‘band of naxeme brigands’ for another year.’
Without warning Lildariel moved closer
to Rostov and snuggled up to him. She was very different alone than
in company, much more friendly and girlish. In front of the rest of
the coven she was often very austere.
‘Don’t get cross Rostov, we are all
doing Her work. Listen then, go to Gnarlwold in Etruna’s name. It
is a wood after all, and was also part of the Great Forest Kingdom. I
remember I spent a summer on its coast once, in a beautiful resort
called .. hmm ..’
Lildariel sat up again with a perplexed
look on her face,
‘Now what was it called?
Del-something? Anyway. And while you are there, look for covens, I
can’t think of any in Gnarlvold at all, but there must be some!
Make contact and bring back word here. Maybe we can help them with
the blight you saw.’
Rostov gave Lildariel a friendly
squeeze, knowing he was being manipulated, but liking it anyway.
‘Yes, mistress!’
‘If you don’t mind too much I will
keep Xomano here for the time being. You have no idea what Princess
Buttercup looks like, I assure you she is very beautiful. If She
wills it, then Hfestos will marry.’
Rostov laughed,
‘I can’t really picture it! King
Hfestos?’
‘He is from a very noble line.’
‘And what about Jal? What use will
you put him to?’
‘He wants to go north to see his son.
I can’t really stop him if he hasn’t seen him in a year. I just
wish he could be held a bit more to account.’
‘Well, if he goes north, why not send
him through Vant? If he’s going to see Mu, then stopping off to see
one or two of the covens there won’t add much to an already very
long journey.’
‘That’s a good idea!’, exclaimed
the elf, and with that she stood up and turned to look Rostov in the
eye.
‘Now give me a kiss and a hug young
human, I am glad we are friends again.’
Rostov was surprised at this, he
couldn’t remember when he had been last invited to kiss her, but
dutifully hugged her as one might hug an aunt, and planted a kiss on
her cheek and received one in return. She smelt of petouli-oil as
always, powerful, but he always liked it as it reminded him of her.
As they walked back to the lodge they
continued their conversation,
‘I will try and send word from
Gnarlwold as soon as I can.’
‘Yes’, the druidess replied, ‘You
were always very good with the ravens, I will keep the top bedroom
window open for them. When will you set off?’
‘Not for a day or two I think. I want
to catch up with everyone first and let my fingers heal.’
When they arrived at the lodge it had
begun to snow a little again and Rostov rammed open the door to let
them enter. They had come in through the back door at the kitchen,
and Xomano was in here preparing some food. The kitchen was small and
dimly lit from the tiny window. Snow came nearly all the way up the
glass and Xomano had had to light a lamp in here even though it was
the middle of the day and bright outside. There were work surface all
round the sink and a small table in the middle of the room with two
chairs. A set of stairs lead up to the druids chambers.
Lildariel kicked the snow from her
boots at the door then smiling at Rostov went upstairs to her room to
change for dinner.
‘All smiles then?’ said the torm
looking up at him.
Rostov helped himself to a carrot from
the chopping board and munching on it said,
‘Yeah, you know me and her. We fight
and then make up. She’s and angel really.’
‘Of course!’, said Xomano a big
smile on her face.
Rostov sat down at the table.
‘Here since you like them so much you
can chop the rest of them.’
The little torm handed him a chopping
board and a knife and the basket of carrots.
‘And these.’ she said handing him
some parsnips.
He began to chop away, and they worked
in silence for a while. He thought about how he was actually glad to
be back at the lodge, and would be really sad to leave it again. They
would all sit down to eat together tonight, and talk about old times
and swap stories, then drink beer and mulled wine in the warm room,
and then he and Xomano would smoke their pipes until the elves
complained and sent them back into the kitchen.
They would then talk the night away,
all of them the best of friends of many years.
It was actually a week before he left
the coven. Each of them, somewhere in them, knew that this was
valuable time they were spending together. After they all went their
separate ways, life might well be very different and not as pleasant.
This time spent together would be good to think back on.
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