Arcfire

Chapter 6

by E. E. Bowers

We know how very much you simply love being apart from Aia! Oh, you cannot stand the very sight… No, the very notion of her. Why, just the faintest hint of anything with moonsilk-white hair is sure to have you fly into the utmost severe of rages. Aia… Aia… You simply growl the name as if ready to tear the throat out of something and eat it raw whilst the flesh still retains not only warmth but also blood.

We can hardly blame you in that regard. Eating something alive means that it is at its absolute height of freshness. Keeps you from expending your civilisation’s miserable and low-tech energy resources on quantic stasis. What’s that? Your civilisation has not yet invented quantic stasis? You do not even know what it is? Worse yet, unable to even pronounce it? And so yet again, you remind other sentient species of your galaxy just how horribly off you are! And all of that because one lithe, pale-haired elf-girl drives you barmy to the absolute!

So with that said, we are taking you elsewhere for this next flow of events. Not everything happens at Master Fromm’s settlement or the immediate environs thereabouts. There is an entire world of events. But not that any of it matters. There is only one inhabited landmass on this still-unnamed planet anyway. There are also other cities, but you only have room enough to imagine just one in this realm.

…

In eras past, your feudal cities had nothing but filthy unbathed people walking about filthy, fecal-strewn streets. Piles of offal amongst horse droppings. (Such is why people wore knee-length boots!) That goes mixed in with the liquid runoff from chamber-pots dumped out windows. The smell is even worse given how no-one has bathed for years! Members of royalty considered themselves revolutionary when they wash once a month! Between such acts of personal hygiene, they would smear themselves with combinations of pig fat and perfume. Oh, and such perfume was made from whale vomit, of all things. So there you have it! This aroma of raw sewage and unbathed fat-smeared humans all stewing about the heated summer air as hairy sweaty furry beasts of burden grunt and sweat their ways along cobblestone streets and drop aromatic soft stones of their own! This, whilst royalty is smeared with vomitus from sea creatures and ruling it all! Isn’t this all such a delicious picture of the Middle Ages? And if you think that life was just so much better because it was more natural? Do you plan on sleeping through the rest of your history classes or overdosing on medieval-fantasy shows as seen on those tiny little phone-screens of yours?

…

This, while this city of this world is actually cleaner than your current urban areas! So goes because the population is smaller and therefore not overwhelming the sanitary system. Look around, and you see traits of a feudal-era human city…but is also not. So goes because it is actually…sanitary! Clean streets with nothing in the way of animal droppings! Not even those of canines, for dogs do not exist here. And clean people! Clean people who bathe more than once a year! Just clean, clean air because people have more important things to do with their time other than coating their flesh with pig fat and whale vomit. (Because there are neither swine nor ocean-going cetacean behemoths of this world. Do you see how that works?)

So, the streets are clean, most structures are only three stories high at the most, and people roam about the town square. An open-air market with merchants hocking their valuable wares. Yes, grow-kilns produce most all necessities—food, water, raw cloth, write-skin, the like. But people do not just live off of necessities. If that were the case, then heads of state would earn more in salary than your (un)professional athletes and drug-addled actors. Because you human-people want things of fun more than you want things of need.

But wait, the people of this world… Are they not human? For the most part, they are! And that would explain why so many things are so very fouled. When people are foolish enough to do something so questionable as to hire a band of mercenaries of questionable mental stability, it throws most everything into question! Risking one’s life for coin and powder, there goes any presumption of sanity anyway....

Which is what came to pass regardless. Jhort’s band of blades-for-hire had escorted a noble lady through a razorglass field on this fine morning. In fact, riding before the morning was bright. Much like the nobility of America and other western capitalist kingdoms, the nobility of this land have peculiarly inverted sleeping habits. Sleep all day when the peasantry is working, and fete the night away, every day. Or every night. If a noble is up before noon, it is because the noble has not gone to bed to begin with. Lady Arteliss wanted a korth-riding romp through a razorglass field and no one at the manor would dissuade her of such a frolic.

Oh, by the way, it is another day. You missed Aia being up for hours even while lying in bed. Having a synthetic corpus means that the girl needs mere hours for refreshment. Being in a strange bed? Hah! The whole of this affair is strange to her. But never mind that now. It is morning! There is cash in hand for a job to do and more cash still upon its completion!

Now, about razorglass. Such is a more or less literal translation of the actual word in the language spoken in this world. You can quite barely handle one language, one language, so we won’t bother with trying to have the actual term it spelt for you. But when a natural phenomenon is called razorglass, would it not be wise to take some kind of caution in the slightest? Do nobles take heed? Are these questions all rhetorical and flavoured with a great deal of sarcasm in addition?

And we speak of entire fields of the stuff! Waist-high to a high-school headmaster if on foot but quite navigable if one is astride the predominant ride-beast of this land. Korths simply smash through the stuff as if it were dried sugar treacle. Razorglass is sharp but it is not overly robust. You can be cut. Thank goodness the fields of it tend to be out in the plains and only cropping up in tightly restricted regions. The standing theory among masters of crystal-craft is that the network roots of growkilns will hoard materials

Now some of you are confusing matters with another phenomena of this world. Something we mentioned before also inclusive of the word razor. But that would be razor-grass. Weave it. Make purses from it. Do everything but make underthings from it. If you do, there will be regrets.

Just as any sane person but Jhort and his merry band of lunatics-for-hire would have something in the way of regrets…if they were not paid. And also, as said before, if not astride their korth. Even with all the extravagances that mercenaries have regarding their six-legged steeds, they had a time of things—keeping up with Lady Arteliss and her custom-crafted creature.

Of course, we left out the adjective. Quite deliberate. Having a time of things. When it comes to humans, most all of those times are bad. As in, a bad time of things.

Just as nobility are short of intellect, thank goodness the same holds for their attention spans. They are people who have grown up and served everything they could ever want. (Something else to be thankful for, their small minds give them narrow interests. Expensively served, yes. But narrow and therefore rather predictable.) And so, if something pleases nobility, it will not do so for overly long.

“To the city!” declared Lady Arteliss. Considering that a rousing speech, the noble then kicked up her steed to take on some speed.

Three words all in one go? And that went without thinking pauses in between? Why, that alone would likely exhaust most all a noble’s intellectual energy for the day! If not for the week! Little wonder that the strumpet wishes to get to the city in such a hurry. Those dim wits were likely feeling ever-dimmer still after that astounding expenditure.

Oh, and did we fail to mention that not only are nobles’ korths bred and modified for speed but also for intelligence? Has to be that way. Drunk or sober, the inbreds of high society need a little guidance themselves upon the return trip. As to needing it on the way out, perchance say that they never have much in the way of plans that forward at all. Where are you going, m’lord? The answer, Out! All the space in their (small) minds full of the fun they’ll have thereabouts, there is no room for composing anything further.

Which were all affairs that Jhort the Hired Blade and his Band of Lusty Adventurers were all quite aware of. Noble brains have too much difficulty with there being far too many consonants and letters otherwise in the word ad-ven-ture. For that reason, just throwing lusty somewhere in there would catch their attention before it slips away. Lusty, now there goes a word that nobles could at least try to understand. All it takes is that first syllable.

With Lady Arteliss’ korth as swift-going as her attention span, the Band of Lust did what they could to keep up. They were already out of the razorglass fields. Shimmering dustings now shed forth from their own six-legged steeds—glittering in the bright of day and fluttering like dust from nonexistent faeries.

Oh, do give it a rest. Just because there are elves, it does not necessarily follow that there are fae or dragons or even leprechauns. And should you ever attempt to declare Master Fromm a relative to the last species in that list, prepare to have your ears seared! That is, once you explain to a citizen of this world what a leprechaun is supposed to be! No basilisks, no banshees, no manticores, no screaming mandrakes (not even whispering ones), no witches, no werewolves, no, no, no, no, no, and…just for the spice of variety, a keystone no thoroughly pounded into place with the power of reason combined with the hammer of empiricism! And should you have forgotten already, no!

And whilst such contemplations were forming dance-partners with all the bits of disappointment in your minds, Jhort and…the Rest were already past the first set of bordering structures and into the city itself. Still going full speed upon their demi-dozen legged steeds. No gates or gate-taxes for that matter. What do you take this for, Earth’s Middle Ages?

…

Which brought them into walking range of the vast town square. You know, this dung-free place of clean commerce? (Sanitarily speaking, of course. The so-called bargains are anything but wholesome.) Why here? Why, because the nobles of this world are just as much store-shop fiends as the nobles found on your planet! The nobles of this world need nothing! They have need for nothing! Not with entire fiefdoms of wealth and all the material goods they already have! And yet…they continue to shop! Why? Probably for the same reason that humans adore ogling at pretty things dug up from the ground.

Before doing so, at least Lady Arteliss had sensibility enough to pay for previous services rendered. The lady tossed the remaining agreed-upon sum to Jhort. A razorgrass coin-purse large as an infant’s head and skillfully caught by the before-mentioned mercenary. Easily enough done, for what mercenary ever exists without the ability to attrap money in mid-flight?

And then, Lady Arteliss was on her way—going to wherever it is that bored nobles go on this world when boredom seized them yet again. Which is to say, wherever they please. Galloping off on her greatly styled steed, her long dark tresses fluttering behind her. While her neck was not as long as that of a certain elf, it was an enviable form nevertheless…as was the rest of her. And then her steed ruined the moment by giving a spray of dark waste-powder.

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See that? Such is why the streets of the ville are so very clean. No horse droppings because there are no horses. Korth are so clean and efficient that even their waste products are just rock-ash in the wind. But for goodness’ sakes, don’t follow a challenge from your equally idiotic so-called friends and lick the stuff. You will be sick into the next day, and it will be completely psychosomatic for the product is mostly inert carbon.

Now with that woman parted, and codes of behaviour in the presence of nobles went along with her. We shall now come to be reminded of what comes to pass between fools and money. Jhort and his Thus-Far-Sober Blades-for-Hire were soon to rectify the before-mentioned situation, for a drink-house is never far from the edge of town. Or for that matter, never far from any location in town. There are no movies (streaming or otherwise), no virtual-combat games, nothing but the sorts of games played with cards and coin. Little else to do otherwise but to drink on down for instant gratification.

And before you go about demanding that some crystal-smith convert a crystal-prophet machine for gaming fun, they will promptly tell you that such machines are for aiding in work. They will then set you to go about learning to operate it yourself. For work. The skyborn were firm in their belief that a planet to be colonised would have worries about food and feral alien creatures—too many concerns to warrant time enough for infernal video devices. Oh, and then bored youths go about sword in hand and have the sorts of fun which either land them in the charnel house or in the employ of the sort like Jhort.

So, with nothing seemingly better to do, Jhort and His Band of Like-Minded Troublemakers-for-Hire set forth to the nearest house of mind-altering drink. More accurately, such alteration would be the more-or-less temporary destruction of their consciousness. Why do humans enjoy self-destruction so very much? Likely for the same reason that it took you over two million years to invent writing or even learn how to control fire.

Yes, yes! Moving about on two limbs instead of four can be so very productive! Why, you’ll be a space-faring species in little time! Relatively speaking, of course. For us, we can easily wait another million years or so. Meanwhile, you have nine hundred million or so before the star at the center of your solar system gives your planet that baked-apple treatment we mentioned some time ago.

…

But then, wouldn’t you know it? His Merry Band of More-or-Less Successful Adventurers actually wanted to do some things vaguely important before reality starts to become vague to their sotted senses. Talit wanted to find out if the rumours of glow-glass bows are real. And wanted to buy one for herself. Streebs is asking to have his dagger sharpened. Rather unfortunate that the same could not be said for his wits! And in that regard to honing his…ah, instrument… Yes, that is quite indeed a metaphor for something else. The rest of Jhort’s Band of Intermittently Employed Layabouts therefore decided to go to the town square before temporarily disbanding. They would agree to reassemble later, and thank goodness that a korth can be maneuvered after its owner has climbed out of a drink-house mug.

That was the plan. Simple, really. Done plenty of times with varying levels of success. Well, it was success enough that they were still Jhort’s Collection of More-or-Less Dangerous People. So, what came to pass this time?

Why, doing everything else but stare at tiny, tiny video screens! They have those games we mentioned and plays and music played by real-live musicians. As in, people who actually know how to both manipulate instruments and their voices well enough to produce tune. (Meanwhile, the so-called musicians of your world are a plague of drug-addled spoiled-brat buffoons. All of them borne of wealthy families. All of them deserving death by the recreational chemicals they consume!) But, none of that here! Good, clean musical fun alongside down-and-dirty games of chance and real plays staged by real actors on real stages. And when it comes to clarity of picture and high resolution, you cannot be any more high resolution than reality itself!

But something else was going on in the town square which caused Jhort ever slightly more confusion than usual. He’s often plagued with such a thing—very likely because he is very often easily befuddled by affairs that cannot be resolved with a stroke of blade or snip of crossbow. (Cutting the Gordian knot, indeed!) He could not simply go about lopping heads to get through this…mass of humanity. And when we say humanity, that includes dwarves and elves.

Or, that elf in particular. Goodness, need we state her name? No, no, no! We refuse! So many amongst you are simply smitten with dreams of her. Look at you! Too many of you sitting there with head in hands and an absolutely besotted. Who needs drink? There is simply that girl of lithe grace and oh-so-long moonsilk hair. And her face. Your faces cannot stop staring at hers.

Which is to also say that Jhort was just as besotted as the rest. His horse knew how to stop when… Just joking. A korth is a korth, of course, of course! His korth knew full well that the human astride was not in the best of condition to navigate. That, and there were too many other humans around. In other words, potential replacements if this human proved to be so suddenly inept that he could never navigate a korth’s course again.

Oh, and there was the matter of the pretty-looking humanoid. Certainly stare-worthy. Such a wondrous-looking mane on that one. Shame of her only having two legs instead of a proper half-dozen. But the two on display—as well-exposed by the slits in the side of the garment—are of quite high quality indeed. Must get around quite well on them. Again, if only for her being bipedal.

Which is to also say that if Aia’s appearance was enough to bedazzle other species besides humans? Well, then her visual spell must certainly be adding to the legend of elves having magic.

Jhort tried to say something, but the words would just not come out. Yes! Absolutely, completely, and utterly yes! For once, something has left this blade-bearing buffoon bereft of bavardage. That something being the pretty little thing wearing her apprentice’s raiment with the hood down. (Whoever designed female apprentices’ garments with the slits at the sides, glory be unto them. Freeing the legs for riding korth? Good enough an excuse otherwise! More like, freeing sight of those wondrous lower limbs!) And with that said, Jhort is very much useless for the time being. Meanwhile, the elf-girl with body of artifice is quite surrounded by a crowd of real bodies that may as well be your beloved zombies.

…

Yet again, Aia thought about how much of a mistake it was to take down her hood. But it was just so very restrictive! Her synthetic body did not need to produce sweat, but it does have sensation enough to recognise warmth. And psychosomatically, Aia took down the hood and freed her hair as do so many people of very long tresses. Moonsilk tresses or not, let’s see how you would feel about having a silk carpet riding upon your back in a warm place?

Master Fromm did advise her to not do what was just done regardless. Again, taking down her hood. It was enough that her legs and figure had drawn stares. Now revealing her face and the long soft white stuff grown from her scalp had turned those stares into paralysis. Oh, and her pointed ears.

We cannot have left out that particular detail. It having been mentioned last, we know, though those things stand first in your minds. It is rather normal to take undue interest in the width of the female pelvis, narrowness of waist, or size of mammary glands. Such are indications of fertility and genetic viability otherwise. But the pointed ears are quite the fetish all their own. Quite decadent indeed, even for humans. Why, if you keep locking eye-contact with those things, you are liable to be poked. Eyes are open, but looking in just one direction at two things attached to the elf girl. This, whilst your peripheral vision does its damnedest to take in sight of everything else.

Which is to say, the crowd is mindless at this point… No, such is normal for the human state of mind—so to speak. Doing more acting than thinking, not thinking much, simply doing what one feels at the moment. The difference is, this crowd is so very overtaken with the sight and presence of a skyfall child. The legends are true! And how something of legend is just so very pretty. (Not enough brain power to reach all the syllables of the world beautiful, so there you have it.)

But Aia was especially mindful of these circumstances and all too concerned. That allusion to zombies we made earlier? By Aia’s time period, the zombie fetish had long since faded from popular conscious—going the way of low-resolution television and works of William Shakespeare. Nevertheless, as with all obscure and obsolete motifs of literature and storytelling, zombie lore was something force-fed to students of public schools. Because force-feeding stories about things hated and outdated? Such is exactly how the upper-classed families induce a hatred of reading and learning—thereby producing an anti-intellectual class of dull-witted working-classed idiots. Idiots, as in, zombies. As in, the sort that seemed to be closing in.

The joke is on them, however. Her synthetic body is inedible to most all organic forms of life, and the only thing left of her living self is her brain. And with that being a human brain, we need not remind you of it’s complete lack of value, nutritional or otherwise! Hah!

No, you stop that. They are not really zombies. It’s a matter of metaphor! As in, not really! But they seem to be acting accordingly. They really want Aia. And with Jakk the Apprentice here, that makes for just two against too many. Oh, what a wondrous thing it would be to have a real hero swoop down and sweep her up and away from this crowd conundrum!

Well? That’s simply too bad. There are no real heroes hereabouts. Aia will just have to make do with the korth-borne antics of a certain mercenary and his Irresponsibly Merry Band of Troublemakers for Hire.

If it can be believed, Jhort has dealt with crowds quite often before. Hordes of loving and adoring masses assembling in a town square or city streets to fete his latest feats of derring-do! (But to be truthful about it, such occurrences are not as frequent as he would like to believe.) Nevertheless! Jhort the (Allegedly) Great knows how to peacefully maneuver a korth peaceably through a mass of loving denizens!

Good horse-sense… Erm, korth sense. A korth is not a horse, but it is close enough and is an improvement still with an extra pair of legs, sections of natural armour, extra resistance to weather, and comes with plenty of everything save a space heater or glove compartment. Being an equine analogue, it has a head and a narrow one at that—which allows it to ply razorgrass, razorglass, and crowds of morons rendered idiotic by the sight of an elf-like girl. That long head served as a wedge in getting through.

Peacefully through. As in, non-lethally! We know that you wanted to see a bunch of korth make use their many hooves to deal with this folderol, making a mass of morons mashed into mush with bits of bone for texture! But, such is not happening to-day! Sorry to break it to you…so to speak.

And then, Jhort’s mount was not too far from where Aia was standing. Then after that, he reached out and leaned down to swoop her around the waist—because that is how heroes get it done! (Meanwhile, the horse-mounted atrocities of your world would snatch her up by the hair. And you still love the idea of knights, the scoundrels.) Then Jhort, mount, and pointy-eared girl were easing off and away through the still-stunned crowd. Oh, and somebody picked up What’s-His-Name as well. Not that the crowd was at all amazed by him.

And then… Yes, it took a while for the less-than-intellectually-capable crowd to realise that something was suddenly amiss. There they were, amidst a feeling of bliss. Not too sure of what was going on, but something wondrous was present. The individuals chose to just go with being part of the crowd and whatever good feeling there was going around. Something to do with something pretty somewhere in the middle of the mass. Whatever it was, they wanted it—so much so that their human organs of thought were less active than usual. But eventually… After a bit of time… With entire moments passed…

It eventually came to be that someone finally understood! This much was made evident when they recovered enough to state aloud, “Someone has kidnapped our princesse.”

Yes, it is spelt with an e at the end, for such is how it is supposed to have been spelt! Blame the savagers for having cast much of your language into ruin!

With that done, Jhort was off and away. The mark of a more-or-less true professional, he did not bother to look back, just kept his six-legged means of movement with its pointed alien-steed head aimed right back where they came in. They entered the city through one gate, and they will leave through the same. Always best to take that way back to avoid any sorts of new encounters. You virtual-combat fanatics should know of this. Random encounters with newly leveled goblins and such most always happen when you venture into new territory. Not that Jhort would know how to pronounce the word goblin let alone what the bloody hell it would be, but he follows the advice regardless.

The advice he heard was something similar—minus the goblin part, of course. But it had to be more-or-less good advice because the one who gave it lived long enough to do so. Or, at least was honest enough to not lead an apprentice to ruin. Which also implies that there are apprenticeships for hooligans-for-hire!

Which is what the townspeople now thought of whoever just spirited off with the girl! How could they not know of Jhort the Jovial and his Aggressive Assembly of Avengers? Well, they did know of him. But remember, the townspeople’s frontal lobes were taking a brief sommeiller. Brief, which is to say, at least temporary. Such is more than what passes with your politicians, for they are always running on the reptilian portions of their drug-diddled mind-blobs.