Arcfire—Chapter 9
by E. E. Bowers
As usual, you’ll want to know a touch bit of background as to the how and why of the matter. What is the matter? For those not having rendered attention to the flow of events, it seems that the certain fluorescent act of a certain elf-girl of artificial corpus has garnered attention. You should have already been told about how that attention extended to the city. (Why-ever not, for the city was not especially far from Master Fromm’s small settlement, and consequently not far from where the event was fired off.) But everything is not about the city. There are other places that also have view of the skyline. And oh, how that arcfire blast had blazed its glorious path skyward—being visible from so very many quarters in the land.
Which actually was conspicuous enough to raise eyebrows with the lord of the floating castle—who also so happened to be lord of the land. There is but one lord, and that would be the atrocious, vile, fur-clad bit of human-shaped buffoonery who occupied the lone throne. We need not bring up his name and are loathe to do so. As if the usual humans are not abysmal enough in regards to quality, this one is farther down still the evolutionary scale.
Indeed, let the anti-intellectuals among you cast fie upon knowledge and praise those physical derring-do. Let them also recall that the lowliest and also the smelliest creatures of the forest have a great deal more physical wherewithal than any human. If physical might is the measure of a being, then they can consider themselves less than animals.
Now, back to Lord Malevolent, also more commonly known as Lord Morkudum. Not a man of mind, he is more a man of dominance. As such, his natural corpus quite reflects that. Great big thick arms attached to a beefy chest (not that beef exists on this world, or cows for that matter), with the muscles-into-muscles thighs of a conqueror. As it is customary for male humans to cover their physical forms—unless partaking of prostitution—he was clad in those before-mentioned furs and leathers. The skins of hand-beasts would be worthy of ridicule. No, such leathers are the skins of korths, and the furs the same. Leather for shirt and pants, with extra furry excess round the tops of the boots. And to emphasise the idea of having a chest of the same, epaulets and more draping fur up front. This theme of hirsuteness, why stop there? His massive beard just about consumed his lower face, the hair of his scalp going up and out and down the back of his outfit.
Such an outfit is only completed with a massive throne, along with some kind of oversized bladed weapon in easy reach. Do not fail to add the occasional brace of trophy skulls from animals either presumably slain by the master of the house, or those creatures who symbolise the might of the presumably almighty. And with certain aristocracies born of atrocities, the ruling families declare themselves such.
No surprise there. The very human rulers of your world’s financial system inhabit a place called Wall Street and declare themselves Masters of The Universe. Never mind if several magnitudes of trillions belonging to other species would tend to disagree, and this speaks of just this galaxy alone!
Otherwise, Lord Make-Fur was not seated at the throne at this moment. No, but it was nevertheless a chair which was throne-like in its bearing. It would be a disservice to have the actual throne placed upon the open-air surface of the floating castle, for the blazing sun would surely bleach the material. That would invite contemplative talk of perhaps the inhabitant of the throne himself becoming bleached as he approaches older years. Such talk would soon find the bearers to be bereft of tongues—if not the rest of their heads along with!
Speaking of tongues, such were being put to use in tasting the roasted flesh of various creatures of the land. That, and beyond. Grow-kilns may produce all manner of viandes from worlds that most all people of this one will never live to see. And if some such meats turn some hapless fools inside-out from the chemistry? Let that be a test of their mettle!
In truth, that only happened once. Or once within the past nineteen days, at the least. Or would that be nine? Who keeps abreast of such things? When one is the lord, one has sniveling underlings with undersized underthings to count coin and crystal within the treasure-rooms! In truth, some of those count-men were easily six feet tall and could easily match any of Morkudum’s usual korth riders in a test of blade or bow. Moreso, given how they were sober more often than the before-mentioned other party.
But let Lord Malapropism keep his distorted perceptions of reality. The less he knows of how the world actually goes about its business, the less likely he is to meddle and make things go amok. Then again true, your world has more than its unfair share of lunacy when it comes to centrally controlled economies or micro-management of behaviours. Few examples of mismanagement can out-shine the antics of totalitarian regimes as headed by inbred, uneducated, and otherwise asinine autarchs!
Oh, but you love autarchs! You hate democracy and love monarchies! Your fantasy-land monarchal kingdoms…with their tow-headed monarchs and sword-swinging simpletons who do little but have sword-duels and use ride-beasts all day! Never mind that, if you existed in that sort of land, you would be more likely the sort to grub in the dirt, work every day so long as there is daylight, and have a lifespan ending in your second decade of life. In other words? Your fantasy-lands are all based upon ignorance and slavery! Monarchy is a presumably polite form of…wait for it…fascism! Capitalism coupled with brutal governance! Powered by crushing human servitude!
Which is why monarchies can only seem to function when the central government is so astounding high up and far away that they know not what goes on in all corners of the kingdom. And they would say corners, given how too many would assume a flat world rather than a curved one. But to even consider the idea of corners pertaining to a round surface would likely bend these weak minds too far out of shape. In which case, anyone to even speak of such things again would be struck…in the head…with the nearest hard object at hand. This, even if such would be another head as belonging to one of Lord Muck-About’s korth riders.
You think yourself above wearing a helmet to ride a bicycle—powered or otherwise. The same can be said for the royal riders of the korth. And it is not as if yet another blow can make matters much worse—all things considered. Additionally, those tall ride-beasts of theirs only add to the height and therefore severity of the impact. Hard heads, one and all. Or perhaps so much time with cranial impacts has led to the development of callouses without and buffering bits of dead brain within?
Surely, if those (damaged and inbred) bits and blobs of think-meat within these skulls could talk, they would say, You can’t hurt me anymore! This, even whilst Lord Mentally Myopic and his moronic lot suck down gallons of liquid brain-damage by the keg. But why bother with goblets? Just…put that digestive orifice beneath the tap, open up, and…
No, not that orifice, you sotted yob! How can you possibly expect digestion to take place from that end?
Nevertheless, jokes of that base quality went on and on—only leading to to howls of moronic laughter from all assembled. (And yes, we are quite aware of the first syllable from the last word in that sentence.) Such a thing has been done before, the retelling of the same joke from weeks prior, and yet the results remain the same. As would be the…ah, outcome. You may interpret that as you will, so long as you also recall that a cure-all substance exists to undo many forms of idiocy. Many, not most, for some may not reach a vasi vat in time enough.
When the laughter was low enough and the buffoon’s pant were pulled high enough, Lord Mindless raised his voice to command yet more low-brow entertainment. Food and sex appeal, the two tenants of idiot urges. There was food in abundance, so let us now have the other part of affairs.
Affairs? What of them? Lord Muck-Mind has as much a mind for affairs as he does with regards to just living up to that very moniker. There shall be no discussion of sombre business unless he deems fit for such. And with a great deal of ale holding everyone in mental swales, consider that to not be a matter on the agenda.
Speaking of which, there never would be an agenda set in paper—not for this generation of Lord Morkudum. The official agenda-bearer of the empire was killed whilst Lord Muck-Maker’s father was in his adolescent years… Thereupon nearing the death of the current Lord Morkudum, there is appointed another agenda-bearer—if only to carry forth the words and wishes of the previous. As befitting the bloody sod-it-all attitude of every successive generation, there comes a time in which the before-mentioned official is subject to a bloody execution for bloody trying to bloody be in charge!
Which again leads one to wonder how an empire in entire can be run at all—what with an endless supply of ale (growkilns strike yet again), an entire land to fabricate all manner of all else not possible with growkilns, and any number of pretty, pretty dancing girls to cavort amongst the royal court. All of this, and nothing of seriousness gets done at this level of governance. And should this raging, intellectually insipid megalomaniac ever get his ham-fisted idiocy and mercurial temper into the doings of the bureaucrats, then one can assure that the empire would certainly have a very, very bad time of things. Might make the people seriously reconsider this whole idea of living under fascism… Or monarchy, if you want to remain wallowing in that ignorance of yours.
Oh yes, and the dancing girls. As befitting any number of your beloved medieval fantasies, the dancing females hereabouts are barely clad in not much to speak of. What, with a stringy-bit of barely-there to cover the baby-producing orifice and two dots of spiked metal connected with another bit of stringiness up top, and wide veils to wave about in playful nods to the idea of modesty. And as to how such outfits can remain in place with very little in the way of materials, just remember that the growkilns are capable of producing rather sturdy synthetic products. Given the size of the mammaries involved, the before-mentioned would perhaps have to exceed the strength of magnesium alloy.
Go on, then. Complain about the presence of scantily-clad women. Meanwhile, say nothing of your…ahem, gentlemen’s clubs. And do not think that we have not caught interstellar bleed-off transmissions of your fantasy shows! Just exactly how many nude human females have been featured on some of those tele-plays of yours, such as the one entitled Gaming the Thrones?
It’s not good intentions which pave the stones to your legendary undesirable afterlife. It’s hypocrisy. That, and a dash of ethnocentrism along with good old-fashioned ideological colonialism as you demand that all other cultures conform to your neo-puritanical ideals regarding your very own bodies!
In the meanwhile, there is ale and dancing and all the sorts of things that you just keep watching on those smartphones of yours without thinking that beings of other species would be aware. Keep at it. You are doing quite the bang-up job! Feel free to note the sarcasm at your earliest convenience. And if you were to actually, physically find yourself in the presence of these rather sizable gentlemen, just be advised that your opinions on the matter could very easily be met with the removal of your offending body-part. (Your head… We are talking of your head. Your head being removed for ever daring to speak to the contrary of a fascist. Or emperor, as you tend to prefer.) And is there a point to showing all this…hedonism?
Why, that’s a fine question! A fine question indeed, friends! And so very well-spoken—especially since we were the ones phrasing it out for you. What is the point of Lord Urine-Pots feasting upon meats with his mouth whilst using his orbs of sight to feast upon dancing maidens? Much of the same seems to happen most all the same days.
Days, yes. Can’t really say weeks. When people do not work for a living, weeks are quite useless. And the same goes for those who must work all the days of the year. No weeks. That means, no weekends. Which means no days off of work. Do you understand how very clever that is?
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Such is how the ruling families go about their business…of making you work their businesses. Then the kings and emperors go about giving their blood-relatives pompous, gibberish syllable-salad titles like baron and duke and viceroy and do you see how there is absolutely no consistency or sense to it all? You ignorant peasants hear a thunderous nobility title—a word that sounds as if it stands ten feet tall—and you are left quaking in your hand-made goatskin flip-flops. This, though you are the ones who put those asinine atrocities in seats of power! No serfs tending the castle grounds. No peasants crafting foodstuffs for the inbred lunatics in charge. No more feudalism because the so-called kings and queens and other assorted ninnies are so inbred that they cannot even dress themselves.
Unfortunately for the people of this world, Lord Morkudum is capable of dressing himself. Such goes because he is a touch bit less inbred than the usual leaders of humanity. Impregnating some hapless wench or other, that’s the way the Morkudum bloodline keeps the blood flowing! And if anyone attempts putting their thumbs to use in roundly condemning the like of this empire’s sexism, then they should recall that such would be less than useless.
There is no internet on this world. Additionally, they do not even exist in your universe. To attempt condemning an asinine warlord who has never even heard of an internet and therefore does not use social media, then to not have that bit of bolly nonsense connected to his world? Your anger is uselessness twice removed. Internet, pah! Such would sound like syllable salad to the likes of him.
Words, sentences, communication! If you wish to communicate with Lord Morkudum, ‘tis best to keep your phraseology rather succinct… And from the dull looks crossing some of your faces upon hearing such terms, such would likely apply hereabouts as well. Food and drink! Conquest and treasure! Domination and execution!
No-no-no. Nix that last bit. Too many syllables, see. Try putting it this way. Rule and kill! Ah, there we have it! Simple pleasures for simple minds, that. Speaking of simple pleasures…
That rather pretty bit of light show lit up a region of the sky over the land. All the land spread out below and beyond this floating castle, a view of all that Lord Morkudum rules, and…a blaze of something pretty going up into the sky.
…
We admit it. This is a slight step back in time. (Saying again, we can do that.) And it is this time that Aia had aimed the other-worldly bow-weaponry skyward, then letting fly with its mighty energies. Now, using our abilities a bit more, we shall bring you back to the floating castle.
…
Pretty, pretty light… Lord Morkudum’s dim-witted, ale-sotted gaze slid and drooled over to where it was glowing from. Such pretty.
If something of that sort can garner the attention of that limp-minded moron, if that bit of bright light can illuminate the attention of his dim wits, then just imagine what sort of effect it would have for the more intellectually fortunate. (This is not especially high praise, for it does not take overly much to mentally outrank nobility.)
So yes, there you have the purpose of this visit—us coming to regard this latest gathering of scoundrels, yobs, and others of stalwart stupidity. Would you care to know just how stupid? That is not hard to say. Their intelligence (or lack thereof) is somewhere between that of a politician and any given member of the plant kingdom. At the very least, plants redeem themselves by producing oxygen and nutrition to backwards, low-brow, primitive societies incapable of producing such on their own. Oh, that would include your planet!
“That… What was that?” went Lord Morkudum, still staring off into the distance even as the bright blue was fading and flickering.
“’Twas a bright light, m’lord! And a rather fetching light at that!” declared one of Lord Moron’s korth occupiers.
“That much, I am certain!” shouted Lord Maybe-Dumb, giving a ham-handed pound to an armrest of this grand seat. (One would easily note the dull wear on royal armrests hereabouts. Generations of rage—impotent and otherwise.) “But, from where did the light come?”
“Oh, even I know that!” declared another bit of korth-ridden idiocy. “It came from…?” Thinking on it for a moment, those few functioning frontal-lobe neurons rummaging about for the answer that was there not too… Ah! There we are! “From the grou-u-und!”
“Light…does not come from the ground,” insisted Lord Malicious-and-Dumb. Then adding, “For I have deemed this to be true.”
“But m’lord! I saw it true!” insisted that very same byproduct of human existence. Not terribly intelligent. Born human, you see. Indeed, perhaps the real tragedy here is that your species just keeps reproducing despite evolutionary setbacks such as this.
Someone just disagreed with the lord. And someone has also done so right here in his very presence. With a great many of his retinue present. Just this side of intelligent to follow instructions. Not far enough along mentally speaking to know that disagreeing with a fascist ruler is bad, of course. (Oh, but you love the word emperor! Oh, too bad!) Nevertheless, the deed was done.
Lord Dorkumum decided to exercise just a bit of wit. And when it comes to fascist overlords, they only trot out the intellectual powers when it comes to doing something viciously destructive. “I think…” he began, “You should really learn to fly.”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to do that! Most certainly, your lordship!” shouted that byproduct. He then made a running leap for the low wall surrounding this top-level castle courtyard. Airborne, he shouted, “Sandakocalabrashatrix!”
We did mention that this is a…floating castle, did we not? Why, that makes for that erstwhile gentleman having a slightly longer opportunity to develop flight capabilities. But that didn’t happen. Flying idiots only happen in fantasy stories.
In the meanwhile, you wonder what the erstwhile gentleman just shouted before his not-so-flighty demise. What was that word he gibbered, by the way? Why bother translating one word when there was only one user of it? And with said user on his way to becoming a meat-filled crater? Actually, now he is.
Thinking as a group, pooling together their own wits, the korth riders then scrambled over to a hand-sized tele-sight crystal set in a merlin for this very purpose. Looking down, far down, at the ground where generations of korth-riders have been thrown, fell, or deliberately practised their flying skills. Sometimes, practise does not make perfect.
“Looks to be…” went the korth rider nearest a tele-sight crystal set in a crenel, “his flight took him eighteen and three-quarter long steps forward. As for downward? All the way.”
Lord Morkudum sighed. Fortunately for his ranks, the mothers of korth riders are rather…ah, prolific. “Does anyone else fancy a flying lesson?”
“I do, m’lord!” shouted yet another one of the before-mentioned. He then partook of the before-mentioned activity. This time, he shouted something that has a translation, but one you shall not have. “Elkric-nes’mirk!”
You may never know what that last bit actually means in any of your human languages, especially with you incapable of traveling to other planes of existence. Nevertheless, the word simply meant something to people. Holds even more meaning still to the worst of people. And with the worst of them being seated upon that throne-like chair over there, it prompted him to have another fool make another crater.
“Why not keep your comrades-in-arms company down there?” he asked of someone random. Does not matter who.
The results were the same. A great deal of enthusiasm expressed. An enthusiastic thrumming of scramble-feet. And the rather empty sound to things when the owner of said feet took a not-so-flying leap. If he was capable of flight, you see, he would not have added another human-sized meat-filled feature to the landscape far below.
“Especially rude of him, having departed my presence without so much as a proper bow,” declared Lord Maliciously Dumb.
With everyone else having varying levels of the before-mentioned traits, they kicked up a wave of laughter in response! It was not an especially uproariously powerful joke. Perhaps this is one of those instances of something like, only funny if you were actually there.
Some more of his comrades had made arm-flapping gestures. Others, making wide-eyed and open-mouthed looks of those who went over the edge. This only added to the fire of humour, humans attempting to take to the air without the means—artificial or otherwise—of remaining aloft. Oh, do go on and ask how some may naturally fly. Just be advised, unnatural agency may be involved, and some of your more arrogant members of the Ivory Tower would debate if such humans would still be humans as a result of genetic modification.
But even with memories of recent malice temporarily occupying the rather limited brains of the korth riders, there still remained the cause for it. One thing leading to another thing, and some human-shaped things demonstrating the power of gravity—of potential and kinetic energy. What set off that series of leaps?
Now, at this point, an emperor would have summoned the aide of the Curia regis. The name goes as such because everything sounds more important when stated in a foreign language, or Latin at the least. You could declare someone amicus foricae, and the ignoramuses among the crowd would be duly respectful. But for all of those goings-on with regards to ten-foot titles bestowed by royalty, there goes the need for servicing the limited wits of royalty exactly because they are inbred, arrogant, self-important, immune to accepting criticism, silent to reason spoken beyond a few sentences… They are just horrible, horrible thinkers—especially after six generations of intermarriage and the resulting births.
Which is why they would summon the Curia regis in moments of mental shortcoming. Which is quite often and for the before-stated reasons. But because the Lords Morkudum have not seen the value in wisdom, they have had their Curia regis killed for even thinking that they could possibly ever know more than their (inbred, asinine) majesty.
“Now, where were we?” asked Lord Morkudum aloud. He almost regretted phrasing it that way. Or perhaps on a somewhat subconscious level, he meant to do so—for it gave him the slightest hair of an excuse as to what followed.
“We were in the sky-high courtyard, your majesty!” declared yet another soon-to-be meat crater. “And I think we still are!”
Lord Morkudum did not even bother to use words. Dealing with morons here, after all. Non-verbal is one of the better ways to go about things. That said—or not said, rather—Lord Morkudum twirled a half-arc with one finger.
Indicating the motion that the meat-crater candidate should physically make. A finger tracing an imaginary leap. Which the meat-candidate did. Another scramble, another blurt of verbal folderol, a running leap, and you very well know the rest—where he came to rest. If not, then perhaps becoming a flesh-filled terrain feature is in your future?
The most powerful and therefore richest ruler in all the land, such means there is no hurry to accomplish much of anything. Nevertheless, all things in consideration, there had to be a point in which Lord Morkudum would get around to accomplishing this latest bit of business. Almost nothing else occupies him at the moment, anyway. The Lords Morkudum had most always simply…cruised through their existence. There would be the occasional uprising, yes. But there were ways of dealing with them and doing so succinctly. An unassailable lord not only high up in his castle but up in the sky.
Oh, we see. You humans could very well ask why no-one has taken on the notion of filling some bags with hot air and getting at him that way. But then again, you are human. May as well ask as to why your own ancestry had civilisations lasting entire millennia…and not a single form of transport faster than a ride-beast. Then ask why no one bothered to hop some combustible substance in a massive drum, add fire, add water, and use the rapidly expanding gas to power vehicles. You just…never got around to it. This, just as your current civilisation never got around to fixing the generations’ worth of flaws in regards to genetically transmitted diseases. Mass stupidity being among them, from the looks of things. (Oh, why bother to look up the latest developments in quantum computing? You would rather look up the skirts of celebrities! Surely things you must have seen many times before, but you feel that you absolutely must look again.)
Meanwhile, Lord Morkudum looked to his korth-oriented followers. (All right, then. Interpret that statement as you will—perverted intent well in tow.) “I want it found, the likely source of that glow. If there is anyone with new knowledge in the land, or if there is anyone new that I do not know of, then I wish it to be known.”
“Pretty, pretty princesse in the city!” shouted one of the korth riders, actually declaring the source of the light-show without deliberately doing so. His poor little mind was so very well overwhelmed that such was all he could get out, flecks of idiot drool wetting the stone floor.
“Wha-a-at!” came the rather female complaint. Someone among Lord Morkudum’s wenches, of course. “A princess…prettier than I! How da-a-are you!”
Lord Morkudum looked to that wench, then looked to the drooling idiot of a korth rider. (No, not that one. The other one… Ah, there you have it!) He then made a sideward nod toward… You will know soon enough.
“Right-oh, yer lordship!” loudly and proudly declared the before-mentioned sub-moron. He then made all due haste in making himself a subterranean feature. The longest journey begins with a single step, it is said. In turn, that last step in his journey is the longest he will ever have made. Certainly left an impression, that one.
But since his lordship needs at least a few korth riders to do his bidding in the land and this latest bit of bidding in particular, he was sure to send them on their way forthright. “Go down to the land the usual way. And then, do as I bid.”
“What was that again, yer lordship?” went one of the korth riders. The other drooling buffoon, if you must know. Someone then drew a war-hammer across the side of his otherwise ill-used noggin. This seemed to jangle some extra bits of brain-matter out of their frequent, alcohol-induced slumber. “Right, then! Find what made the pretty!”
“Yes, find what made the pretty,” said Lord Morkudum. “Then, bring it to me as so I may add it to my own collection of pretty.” Two of the wenches then sidled up to his lordship, portions of their bared anatomy seeming to polish bits of his shoulder-armour. They are called epaulets, if you must know. And as with all cases of all overblown other-worldly warlords, they were quite sizable, indeed. Likewise, the dual upper anatomy of the nearest wenches were proportionately so.