JET 8.9: INTO THE MAW
“They behave as though they alone have access to a calculus of joy and sorrow which always tips to the latter and which none may gainsay. It is not a fact that there is more hurt in the world than bliss. And if you cannot determine the truth, will you go on to say that it is better to live as though the world is such? It hurts me that you are so damaged as to think all the world a wound. You forget your vitality. You forget the new evanescent experience. You have chained yourself then claimed all existence a prison. Choke forth the key! None can do it for you!”
– taken verbatim from ‘The Sermons of the Unbridled’ recordings, Mortifost 772 NE
The king’s corridors were filled with soldiers, almost all of them with the same dark eyes and hair, the same yellow-pale skin. Snooty-looking men wearing expensive fur hats on their heads were busily going to and fro – courtiers or envoys of some kind, I supposed – with their hands clutching scrolls, or even sheaves of true paper in some cases. They stood aside, gawping or sneering at me as our escort led us on. The place was hewn from rock but the walls, floors and ceilings were so expertly-smoothed that it barely gave me Zyger flashbacks. There was minimal wood or textile in use – a few drapes and paintings were scattered here and there, but most of the nooks and alcoves had been given over to carvings where there was space for artwork. Instead of Mund-style carpets the Telese seemed to favour sheepskin and otter-fur rugs, and even here in the royal household they seemed to be few and far between. What was even more noticeable to the outsider: not many of the lights in the High Hall were magical in nature, ordinary lanterns gleaming away in most of the rooms I glimpsed through open doorways. There was an ancient-looking light-globe hanging near the ceiling in the Hall’s entryway, and one illuminating the broad spiral stair we slowly ascended – that was it.
Finally the curving steps brought us into a huge room, in which the pure white radiance of ensorcelled globes was once again to be found. The window was the first thing I saw as we came up into the chamber – it was massive but fairly useless for admitting light. The glassless opening was three feet off the ground, a fifty-foot-long, six-foot-high wound in the wall, allowing the wind to howl at us, paw at our clothes. Such a huge hole seemed altogether stupid to me – it’d occurred to me as we climbed the stair that we must’ve been climbing almost to the peaks of the cliffs, now, only within the cliff-face rather than upon it. A curious location for you to choose to create your stronghold, where enemies could rappel down from above, entering your extremely-accommodating window… Though I supposed in a place like this, the majority of attacks would come from the reavers of the high seas, not overland. It was possible that the notion of bringing an assault force onto the tops of these cliffs was completely impractical, and we certainly had a brilliant view of Telior’s bay and Northril beyond. I had little doubt you’d have the perfect opportunity to plan a response to invasion from this vantage.
Still, I wouldn’t have placed the throne on the opposite wall if I’d been designing the place. Ship-mounted projectiles were pretty fearsome in most stories, and the dark elves’ harpoons hadn’t dissuaded me from that opinion – if there were pirates in the bay, you couldn’t have paid me enough to sit there, looking out on the hails of missiles. A volley of true-flight arrows would be your ending.
Perhaps we were too high up – or maybe it was just a sign of bravery on behalf of the Telese monarch. He certainly looked imposing enough to face down a fleet of enemy vessels.
The seat was a massive triangle of dark, glittery stone, a short flight of steps cut into its face to let King Deymar Northsword ascend – but it didn’t look as though he or his ancestors would’ve had much need of them. The man had to be seven feet tall, shoulders like barrels beneath the velvet robe he wore. Deymar’s arms looked to be as thick as my legs, and his black beard longer than my hair. His crown was gold and bronze; I saw as we came closer that it was inlaid with milky gems and flecked with amethyst stones. His eyes were not so dark as his countrymen’s, however, staring down glacier-blue at the sword-armed man giving him a telling-off.
Or, at least, what sounded like a telling-off. It was hard to tell what was going on. For the first time in a long time, I wished I’d taken some divination classes back in Mund when I’d had chance – I ought to have taught myself the cheapest spells for gaining the ability to speak unknown tongues. Even if I hadn’t been able to motivate myself to waste time on something that wasn’t sorcery or Emrelet, I could’ve stolen some appropriate potions before we left… what had I been thinking?
The king let the man finish his rant – it was quite an interesting watch, actually, with the supplicant shouting once or twice, even jabbing his finger at the king then down in the general direction of the docks. Deymar Northsword didn’t seem to react, and when the subordinate finished the king waited for a few heartbeats before replying in a measured tone, words again I couldn’t comprehend.
“You can get us out of here, right, Raz?” Jaroan spoke quietly, but he still snarled the last word.
“Of course.” I glanced at my shields – no one was so much as tickling them. Not yet, anyway. “We’re a hundred percent safe.”
“Heh-heh!” Jaid chirped, more nervous-sounding than amused.
I glanced at her, but the concern hadn’t quite reached her eyes.
Nothing new there.
I turned back, and tried to focus on King Deymar’s response to his angry vassal. For all his immense stature, for all that his voice was a rolling rumble, he seemed to be doing his best to pacify the man, not laying down the law…
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“So, zis is ze demon-summer,” came a voice from my left, intruding on my concentration.
I turned to regard another dark-haired man, this one with curly ringlets framing his face. The quality of his clothing was surpassed only by the king’s, yet he wore iron-shod boots, and a blade hung at his belt.
He was looking at me derisively, and speaking Mundic for my benefit, but it was Sergeant Fyorin he was addressing, his silk-clad body planted right in front of the lead guardsman.
“He does not look all ze scary. Vhy does he not speak? Vere you to pull his teeth out of his head, Esvyl?”
“My lord, he has been advise by me to not speak until invited.”
I ducked my head, trying to make it clear I was willing to play by the rules, but I wasn’t going to actually bow before this ‘gentleman’.
“Ah.” Curly-Head glanced over my crumpled robe, then turned his eyes on the twins. “Oloesong kim ku brinjal… Are zese three igliaz, zen?”
Igliaz?
“Ku siiv helaigne, kur hool.” The sergeant looked back at us. “He ask if you are three orphans.”
“I am an adult,” I said, grateful for the opportunity to speak at last, “by both your law and my own. I’m eighteen, soon to be nineteen.” I hoped the twins kept their fortify faces. “These children are my blood, and my wards until they too come of age… And they’re in my wards, if you follow my meaning. You know what I am?”
“You are a saucer!” Curly-Head seemed affronted that I’d dare ask a question back, and drew himself up, putting his fist against his ribs dramatically so that his elbow was stuck out. Perhaps he’d been thinking of drawing his weapon, then thought better of it before ill-will sent him skittering across the room. “You stole from ze market, no? For zis alone ve vould take ze hands, but zen ze captain tells us of ze blagorach, ze fiends you –“
He was drowned out by laughter.
Not mine. Jaroan’s.
I had to lower my outer shields, knowing such mockery would only exacerbate the intensity of this situation – the nearby watchmen gripped their weapons in preparedness.
I slowly swivelled to face my brother, catching him panting for air.
“Oh, oh, oh please,” he gasped, “pl-please stop, just stop…” He finally seemed to catch his breath. “You, you know he’s a, a s-s-saucer, so just stop. I d-don’t even have the lux… luxury of telling you you don’t know who you’re messing with. You do. He fought off that ship of bones. He fought –“
“Silence,” I whispered.
Amplified. A whisper that slashed through every conversation in the room, rippling out to the walls and back again.
The worst part was, for all the impropriety of his giggling fit, for all that he didn’t understand the true import of his words – Jaroan was right. I wasn’t going to walk on eggshells here. If they wanted me to be a push-over, they’d have to actually try pushing.
“Cheers. For your attention, I mean.” I gazed around at my new audience: over a dozen noble-looking fellows were in attendance, leaving aside the various maids, servants, guards, whose eyes were also drawn to me. “I’m quite busy, and I was about to pass through your lovely tow- city…” I focussed my eyes on the king, who seemed if anything somewhat relieved by the distraction. “I thought I’d get to stop one night at least, but, if you’re this determined to be rid of me, just let me go. I won’t cause any trouble. But this one,” I indicated Curly-Head with a chin-thrust, “wants to take my hands. I need to let you know, that isn’t even remotely possible. The captain you’ve been listening to wanted to abandon ship, then kill me once I –“
“You be silence!” Curly-Head shrilled, and drew his sword – and a few of the nearby guards followed suit.
Causing a short series of green bursts of light (and a single purple one), I stepped forward with the twins into Etherium, entering a rather standard-looking cavern for this plane. The place was covered in glowing mushrooms and moss, a luminous waterfall trickling down one of the decidedly non-smooth walls –
“Oof!” Jaroan said, rocking on his heels with the dimensional motion.
Jaid said nothing, just clenching her fists and gazing about expressionlessly.
“I won’t be long,” I promised as I brought out my knife. “Who’s going first?”
I made the slices on the backs of their hands quickly, shallowly, filling them with a sliver of power – the twins hardly even seemed bothered. Both of them perked up, however, when I reached through Materium back to Etherium, dragging a dozen giant gold squirrels into the cavern and showering the twins in them.
I finished by bringing Avaelar and Zabalam through. “Keep the twins safe!” I cried, then thrust myself back into Telior’s High Hall.
Magenta light showered down on me for a single instant as I performed my trick, moving myself into the shadow-man even as I stepped into the air, bad leg first.
In total I must’ve disappeared for a good thirty, forty seconds – by the time I’d gotten back, the natives were in a state of complete disarray, and I tapped the wraith liberally, letting my shields fall.
My sudden reappearance in their midst, the ethereal foam and nethernal gloom dripping through the air – I couldn’t really blame the three or four guards who swung at me with their weapons.
But Curly-Head – despite the fact his sword was doing nothing he continued to petulantly press the attack, sawing the blade back and forth through my ninety-percent transparent robe and flesh.
Him I could blame.
I was about to point at him and fire an imp at him like a wizard fires a fireball, but then the king used his deep, rumbling voice to better effect:
“Bakar! Hold! Did I command his death?” King Deymar Northsword was on his feet, boots planted on the top step of the black stair, and imposing wasn’t even the word. “I ask the sorcerer here with the open hand, arms wide in fellowship! Come, sorcerer! I see your quest will not wait. I would speak with you now, and let you begone if you would afterwards.”
I raised my eyebrow. He had the Telese accent, of course, but mixed into the voice was something almost… Oldtownish?
My aggressors fell back, faces ranging from sullen to relieved, but I didn’t approach the king – not yet.
“What do you want with me?” I called, floating up slightly, almost onto his level.
He was smiling. “I am not stupid,” he called back, all eyes looking between the two of us. “I have heard the stories. I have been to Mund. I have spoken with a seer. I know who you are.”
What! I shrieked internally.
“Or what you are,” the king continued. “You are what they call arch-sorcerer. Is this true?”
I nodded slowly.
“Servants!” He clapped his massive hands. “Bring bread, and beer!” He smiled at me. “I have invited you here to offer you a job.”
* * *