Arcfire
by E. E. Bowers
Chapter 5
Do you recall? We presented the truth about knights on horseback. About all knights, for that matter. Well, what else is to be expected? Take a problematic spoiled lot of teenagers, give them the power of law, and expect the worst! Yes, many knights were teenagers. Teenagers! Not fully adults by contemporary human regulations! So how it goes when the average lifespan for Medieval Times was about thirty-five! Most people did not live long enough to become sensible…which speaks volumes regarding the behaviour of young people overall.
Well, psychologists will not speak it to you directly, given your sensitivity to criticism and your immense arrogance. We are beyond your psychologists and will therefore tell it to you straightaway.
Teenagers are stupid. Humans in their early twenties are stupid. There is not a single professional scientist of mind will say that teenagers have superior reasoning to adults. And those that do? They are either not accredited psychologists, or they will not be for long. This, no more than there are human physicians who accept obesity or proclaim the benefits of consuming alcohol.
No, eating your body-weight in sweets is not, not, not healthy. And no, drowning your sorrows in drink will not serve benefit. It will do more to drown your neurons instead. Or perhaps, speaking to the contrary, having enough non-food and alcoholic drink will end your life and…by logical extension…end all your troubles in this life!
That said? Those of you who care more for cakes and ale than your existence? Have at it! Another six hogshead of beer just arrived, and the local patisserie has delivered an astounding variety of biscuits! Each the size of your enlarged spleens! (And from the looks of things, your enlarged appetites!) Why bother with being intelligent when you will die before reaching the age of twenty-five? Go on! Eat up, then! And be sure that funeral arrangements are well in docket, eh?
…
Cakes and ales a-plenty in the city, but Master Fromm does not live there. He lives in the outskirts and plains just beyond. And out here, one had best go easy on affairs that would compromise one’s health. So goes because there are other dangers. Mid-sized dangerous beasts the size and shapes of dogs but clearly not dogs because canines do not exist in this world. Small beasts that are nevertheless quite poisonous. Why-ever not? The hard-scrabble desert-plain plants they consume are of a like nature.
And here come the most dangerous of beasts, politically empowered idiots on korth-back. When idiocy has the power of law, they are all the more destructive still. So goes because their lord and master is the most powerful idiot of them all. Not only do we see him standing there, we also see what is on his mind. Or what is in it, rather.
Using our own technological control and capabilities of time and space, we are able to know what passes in the mind of Master Fromm. Such includes how we were able to bring you here, after all. We could just as easily read your minds and… Oh, how profane. There is no way such an act could be made public and remain legal. Never mind, so to speak!
In any event, Master Fromm’s mental intentions were quite a bit more proper and even less obscene than some of yours. Reading his mind, and only doing that. Not planting anything within that would give him an undue advantage. Now, doing that would be against the rules of the game, and what fun is a game without rules? Therefore, sit on in fun and amusement as Master Fromm comes to confront a dozen oversized oafs with a dozen bits of malicious buffoonery between their ears.
So there he stood. Not standing terribly tall, that one. Else, he would not be a dwarf. But he stood broad, strong, and firm—which is definitely within the purview of being a dwarf. ’Tis always best to not show lack of courage when confronting Lord Morkudum’s korth riders. Being the pack animals they are, the smell of fear drives them to savagery.
Savagery? Reaction to smelling fear? Is this in reference to the korth or the humans astride them? The answer would be both.
Master Fromm had spotted them in the distance—using crystal-crafted long-sight, and now they were here too soon. Unfortunately, the slowed perception of time vis-à-vis bad times does not occur when danger is on approach.
Most of these korth riders had wheeled around their ride-beasts—stopped sideways as so they could clearly address the dwarf as so they could be seen and heard clearly. Not having to talk past the thick scraggly horn-faced heads of the creatures. Then again, some of them had actually done that—leaving Master Fromm to face one animal whilst hearing the proclamations of another type of animal.
Now, think. Thinking is how he is to win the day. Thinking, like a game. And like a round of stratohex, it’s best to take the initiative to seize the advantage in situations like this. The first move made could very well turn the swell of possibilities—hopefully in one’s favour. If not? Then, one has done part of one’s best. Leave luck to heaven, if one believes in such a thing.
Master Fromm was the first to say something upon their arrival, raising his left hand in the proper gesture. “Hail Lord Morkudum! May his lifespan match his wisdom! And may he reign as long as he lives!”
This was a pretty turn of words. With their lot, lord Morkudum’s korth riders are neither wise nor intelligent. Therefore, even the simplest of wordplay is like a very fascinating bauble to them. This, much as a sphere of glowglass may provide hours of fascination for a toddler. Simple pleasures for simple minds. Sophisticated words, more interesting still—if only in a bedazzled manner.
Thank goodness their minds are simple—despite such minds being atop massively armoured bodies with arms thick as tree trunks. Never mind the lack of trees hereabouts. Be more mindful of these savage lunatics and their long sharp blades. (Oh and by the way, did you catch the snark in Master Fromm’s words? Well then! You too may have a bright future among the dull-witted ranks of the korth riders! That goes especially if either frequent reading or frequent bathing are among none of your pleasures!
And to show just how vaguely appreciative the korth riders were of Master Fromm’s words, they smiled and nodded amongst themselves. We won’t bother with names, by the way. Lrod Morkudum’s korth riders tend to think alike…even if they do not think very often.
But, they did have some rather old-hat wordplay for Master Fromm. Said one of them speaking from behind his korth’s head, “How goes the perspective from down below? You need not stoop to gather loose crystal, for you are ever closer to the ground!”
Laughter, of course. Simple words, simple minds. These words—as poorly pronounced as they were—set up a firestorm of uproarious guffaws. Really, really deep belly-clenchers. Keep that up, and one would presume ruptured diaphragms.
But Master Fromm took it. He always did. City children tend to be among the worst children in many societies. And unfortunately for him, the only schooling and apprenticeships to be had with a mind like his would be in the city.
The city… The city… What a wonderful, horrible place. And stop fretting about us not taking you there yet. Nothing going on beyond the usual. Everyone and everything from cut-purses and cut-throats were easing out from their daylight hide-holes.
No, you don’t want to be there. Unless you fancy yourself skilled with a tiny sly blade, that is. Even so, just remember that humans are one of those unfortunate species without eyes facing rearward. Half your lives using those rather long silly columns of bone-hinged meat to turn your heads all about… Just think, you could have spent that time contemplating using machine- or life-craft to put orbs of sight all ’round. Might add some years to your purse-purloining lives. Not many, mind. Troubled lives are never long lives.
And they eventually stopped laughing. For now. Keeping them amused, so goes one way to keep them from becoming too belligerent. They always are belligerent. It is just a matter of degrees, that. Just as children and teenagers are always quite stupid. Just look at Aia.
“So what have you to say for yourself, diminished one?” asked another one of the korth riders. “What else? You praise the lord but little else.”
“Oh, but I serve the lord! And the people of the lord too!” he said with practised (theatrical) enthusiasm, reaching for a weave-pouch. It was one of those things he grabbed up before stepping out the door.
What kind of something? Preparation, of course. The grown-ups of your neighbourhood certainly do something similar—grabbing the pest-spray from the chemical cupboard or an old worn something from a pile of old slippers. The chemicals are for insect pests. The slipper, to throw at human pests. This every single last time you show up to raise a ruckus. Always having to get something to do aways with the nuisances and troubles.
This pouch, he tossed up toward one of the korth riders. And it was caught accordingly. It was something for Lord Morkudum, yes. But it was also something being handled by the astounding, blazing intellects of the korth riders. (Those who fail to catch the sarcasm, they should feel open and free to climb on up a saddle and join the ranks of their think-tank.) So they did what most any pack of galloping buffoonery would do. One of them opened up the sack and had a look-see inside—whilst the others with korths parked close enough leaned over to do the same.
Looking. And staring. You would probably expect the glitter of gold and diamonds and all sorts of shaped and coloured bits of precious stone. Well? Precious to whom, we ask? (A question mark at the end, see. Means, we asked a question. Period there. Means we ended a sentence.)
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Precious to you, buffoons! Cousins to baboons! All humans, sometimes no better than all the other lower primates! You dig some pretty, pretty rocks out from the deep on deep, cut those rocks into simple shapes, and declare them va-a-a-aluable. Oh, but before you do, you give it them asinine names. This translucent thing? Di… Di… Di-a-mond. (Ooh, shiny.) And sa-phi-re. And em-er-alds and ru-bies and jet and jade and bloody all else!
They are just rocks, you bunch of air-breathing, bi-pedal simpletons! Just rocks! They serve no purpose whatsoever other than to be placed upon shelves and marveled upon by others quite stupid enough to do the same! For all the time spent… No, all the time wasted on marveling over things dug up out of the dirt, for all the decades unto centuries unto millennia unto eons, think of all that you could have accomplished! You could have done the decent thing and have invented trans-warp space travel! Damn it, man! You could have at least unbanned genetic engineering and cured diseases like stupidity! Cure you of that inane, insane desire to ogle over pretty things dug up from the dirt!
But, you will learn the error of your ways! When a giant race of insects arrive to lay claim to the one planet that you inhabit as of the time of this tale-telling, you will have wished that you would have left those bits of nonsense in the ground! Or at least figured out what they could really be used for in regards to the manipulation of antimatter!
Speaking of nonsense—other than that which rests in the skulls of Lord Morkudum’s korth riders—they were still staring. And by the way, we…did not tell you what’s in the sack. You will go to your graves never knowing, just like so many other things. Just be satisfied to know that whatever it was—singular or plural, by the way—it was precious enough to make the korth riders satisfied.
“Very well, master dwarf!” said one of the korth riders, smiling as he did. “We’ll see to it that the appropriate parties receive this boon.” Looking away, already thinking about all that drinking. “Away!”
“Away!” shouted the other korth riders, for originality is not found among their traits. And with that, there were the quadruple beats of those six-legged beasts getting away from here.
Goodness knows if they stuck around a master of crystal-craft, they just might actually have to learn something. We can’t have that, eh? Given the tiny amounts of questionably-flavoured thinkmeat bobbing about in their skulls, anything in the way of positive or helpful knowledge just might make said craniums explode. Because that’s what happens when you mix extreme stupid with even just a dollop of smart. Like a drop of acid in a base. Bad reaction, that.
And with that, Master Fromm was more or less glad as to how things turned out. Giving that sack of something or other to those galloping products of balderdash, now he was rid of them. For now. As for that seemingly precious something, Master Fromm could always have more of it. Maybe he gathered it by having mesmirised growkilns seep it up from the land. (No need to dig for anything, not with the mineral veins of growkilns gathering matter and converting it to useful bits of whatever.) Maybe the stuff fell from the sky—like a certain bit of elf-flesh with some long moonsilk-white hair on top. Or maybe it’s the fermented and pasteurised wisdom of the ages.
But no, it could not be the latter. Again, korth riders and thinking never mix. Nor could it be any of the former. Or maybe it is. Again, not telling. Have a pleasant life.
And Master Fromm planned on doing the same despite all efforts to the contrary. Also, as much as he would hate to admit it, that girl-shaped bit of elf-flesh fallen from the sky was maybe a good thing. It was high time that his apprentice had something of a love interest. Shy as a hand-beast ambling in the vicinity of a frying pan, that one.
And yes, he did wait this long before turning back, by the way. Turning back to go back into his residence. Korth riders may be an intellectually troubled lot, but they are also a wily lot. The human Earth-English expression goes, crafty as a fox. Not especially intelligent, mind you. Just very troublesome and just with minds enough to cause trouble. The criminal brain always seemed wired for weakness where it is proper and unusual wisdom in regards to breaking laws and morality. Their brains become that way in their early teenage years and only grow worse. Something to do with how a tree grows wrong to start, and how it just keeps getting worse as time takes it unto maturity.
Not that there are any trees hereabouts, mind you. And thus, no unicorns to prance therein. No unicorns either—unless you count the scoundrels who knock heads at pubs and develop swellings center-front upon their foreheads. And because the center-front of the forehead is where the most important of forethought occurs… See how that works? Fore-head? Fore-thought? Well, if not, then perhaps it was too many blows to that part of your head otherwise.
In other events, Master Fromm put one work-booted foot in front of the other. This news further develops as Master Fromm then put another booted foot forward. He put the other work-booted foot forward as well. This is called walking. And in this rather bold-strident manner, he was walking his way back to the two troublesome youths now in his life.
Thinking of how they were like his children now. By adoption, of course. And both for the sake of temporary existence here. No actual children for a dwarf these days, not ever otherwise. A dwarf’s genetic traits are presumably problematic enough, and the physicians all speak against traits being more twisted still with the generation that follows. Besides, women of this world judge a man by the distance of his head from the ground. However, certain exceptions are made regarding the height of his fortunes from the same.
Women, almost never wives. Marriage is almost nonexistent in this world. It seems that the descendants of Earth actually learned something about the institution—as in how it does not work. After all, marriage is the leading cause of divorce! Hah!
…
Temporary closing out the threats of the outside world, Master Fromm closed the door. He then brushed a hand against a crystal set in the doorjamb. There as a heavy clank-k in response as a bolt automatically slammed home—a sound satisfying satisfaction. Engineering types can be like that, for they just know that machinery runs true when it resonates a certain way. All sorts of machinery hereabouts, and Master Fromm knew how it all works. A simple automated portcullis is well within his capabilities. Why, portcullises are such simple contrivances that even humans can concoct them.
When some of you are capable of stating what a portcullis is without consulting your smartphones, do let us know. Oh, and guillotines. We also have some schema for guillotines. You’ll need them to cleanse the ranks of your society from the millionaires—otherwise known as parasites—that dominate. So dead-set on fears of alien takeover or zombie apocalypse, and yet the human equivalent of zombies rule your world from the comfort of their mansions. In all honesty, you’d be better off with aliens or zombies in charge, or at least the zombies. Compared to the millionaires and billionaires of Earth, the shambling undead are more intelligent and capable of making better decisions.
Meanwhile, Master Fromm had opened that bit of trick-wall—half expecting the two to at least have half their clothes off. He was almost disappointed to see that they had their dignity mostly intact. Jakk the Apprentice was instead wearing a severe hot flush to his cheeks.
Must be constipated in that sort of way—given proximity to a skyfall girl. Even if one were to hide her pointed ears, there would sill be the rest of her for local girls and women to compete with. Indeed, the day that Aia must go into the city will be an…interesting one.
But the two apprentices were not privy to Master Fromm’s thinking, instead just seeing the resulting smile.
And so the dwarf said, “Fear not, normal-sized ones, for I have temporarily vanquished the threat to house, hovel, and home!” He ambled into everyone’s personal space to stand in front of the circular crystals. As clear and as impossibly high resolution as they were, his practised eye could nevertheless see and note that the view-works were of crystal. “Eh-what? The korth clowns are out of earshot already? My skills of speech-craft must be nearing that of a politician running for office.”
“Then they are gone!” cheered Jakk, looking to Aia…as if he needed an excuse to do so. And just looking.
With Aia not minding much. It was a peculiarity of Americans in times past to not like being stared at. Aia was not born to America, and her thinking remained European. Americans, claiming forever not wanting to be looked at. Never mind all the incessant idiocy posted on social media to the contrary! In fact, it was exactly that which led to Aia not minding.
With Aia asking about what-all in regards to future visits. “If the korth riders keep on with their behaviour, it is a marvel that they are not… You know… Overthrown?”
“But we have treaded this trail before, lass!” declared Master Fromm, taking steps out of the tiny hidden space. Without saying anything about them following, he just kept on saying what he was saying. Walking and talking. “The korth riders are the galloping representatives of Lord More to Come. And if there is any doubt as to there being any more trouble to follow from them, then just recall the moniker given!”
“But there is a city,” insisted Aia, following Master Fromm into the hall. “The people of the city must surely have no love for a distant tyrant! Conquer him! Form a democracy!”
“Form a…Damocles?” asked Master Fromm. “Oh, that must be one of those skyfall words. ’Tis wondrous and strange enough that you ken our tongue as you do. Bound to be misunderstandings hither and thither.”
“Democracy!” insisted Aia. “Rule by the people! The American people say they are all about it!”
“Damocles! Annika people! What delightfully strange words you use!” went Master Fromm. “For all the great wisdom and intellect that your people possess, conquering time and space and such, you are bound to have strange words. It would only stand to reason that your sense of things is jumbled at times. Much as I have already informed you that Lord Morkudum is well-nigh invulnerable in his floating castle.”
Now entering the salon once more, those comfy armchairs still waiting for bottoms. Master Fromm was all too glad to oblige—especially with his tea still being hot and sweet. And it also having been refilled itself since last visit.
A bit more crystal-trickery, that. Grow-kilns grow everything. A bit more of that powdered machinery in a teacup can make more tea for the cup by manipulating airborne matter. Not as much and as quickly as doing things the old-fashioned way, mind. But quickly enough for there to be more tea when pausing a hard day’s work in manipulating crystal or flummoxing korth riders.
Master Fromm took another sip of tea before continuing. “Lord Morkudum has always been, and Lord Morkudum always will be. When one dies, if one dies, then there comes another. Like plate-ducks standing one atop another, an infinite stack of nonsense! Just as there is the legend of plate-ducks standing one atop another to hold up the world, there will always be another Lord Morkudum. Down and on down until the sun-star explodes and takes all our moons with it!”
Aia sat down in a huff, the front flap of her divided skirting going a bit too high, hastily put back in place before Jakk went apoplectic. Not minding that at the moment. “It’s a sad world, then. Always living in fear of the next visit from them.”
“Brown squares for dinner!” declared Master Fromm, obviously changing the subject for obvious reasons. “No time for catching hand-beasts and cooking their delicious little bodies proper! Brown squares with a side-dish of green squares, fresh from the kitchen grow-kiln!”
Which left Aia asking yet more questions that would not be answered. “Why do you bother catching and killing animals for food? These miraculous grow-kilns of yours can simply grow what you need to eat, right?”
“Brown squares for dinner!” declared Master Fromm again. “We all eat here, even unto sundown. Such would give time enough for Lord Muckity-Dumb’s arse riders to be well into their cups. During which, they shall be a temporarily increased threat to everyone in their immediate vicinity but not for long. The barkeeps of the city know to add a little something extra to their brews to strengthen the effects. And with dinner, we shall discuss preliminary reading assignments for you and the importance of weighted exercise! No apprentices of mine are going to go about not being able to lift tools and barrels!”