14
Indech, the King of Fomoria
Oydd waited for the sun to set, secreted away in a small grotto in the foothills where a steady stream had worn away the rock.
Before the sun rose, Licephus had pointed out the mountains of Fomoria—no more than an hour's journey. And yet, the vampire did not dare risk the final stretch during the last hour of night, lest they were unable to find shelter in time.
And so the group fell a full day behind.
From his vantage point, Oydd could see a small village and wondered how they fared, so close to a valley of giants. He even wondered what horror they might feel if they knew of his own presence, or of the vampire. Surface dwellers often relied on fear, rather than strength, to survive.
However, Licephus did say that the fomorians seldom emerged from their subterranean home. And so, perhaps this village was as safe as any of the dozens of elvish cities that flourished above Al Tsiroth.
Licephus referred to the fomorians as 'true giants', with some, including their king Indech, as high as forty feet. But they ranged wildly in height, with some below ten feet tall. Though, these were considered pests, culled for sport by their cannibalistic brethren.
Licephus allowed the druid to bask in the last rays of sunlight, though he and the rudra stayed behind in the damp dark—quiet but for the flow of water.
Patches climbed a small game trail to the side of the stream, and the vampire made no comment on her leave, seemingly content to let the mouseling govern herself.
"The silent breath of twilight..." Oydd motioned toward the stars with his staff as he seated himself on a rock near Licephus. "So described by the rudran poet." Oydd had long dropped the lord's title, and the vampire made no complaint. "I, however, find the vastness dizzying."
Licephus looked up toward the stars, but made no response.
"You seem troubled."
He sighed. "That's because I am troubled," Licephus stated flatly. He smirked. "I don't care for giants. I feel... small around them. No amount of power can make you feel safe around Indech."
"You've met him before?"
"I have. He sits atop a throne made from the bones of his own kin. He rules on fear and intimidation. Which will work to our advantage."
Oydd scoffed.
"Because..." Licephus continued, "our kind is viewed as inferior. He will not deign to threaten us. It would be... undignified to treat us with so much esteem."
"I don't mean to critique your judgment," Oydd clarified. "But I despise diplomacy."
"You are not used to being powerless. With the fomorians, I assure you abasement will get you further than muscle."
"Why do you suspect the forgemaster is here?"
"The crystals in Fomoria have unique properties. In truth, it is the only location where the materials to produce adamantite can be procured. The process is alchemical, requiring a cold forge," the vampire added as an aside. "Regardless, I have confirmed his presence." Licephus folded his arms, holding his chin in one hand. "A changeling with whom I am familiar."
"And what if he is working with the fomorian king?"
"Oh, he almost undoubtedly is. But I know Indech well enough to know he will pretend otherwise. If only to mock us, he would deny any association with the changeling. But in so doing, we will manipulate him to abandon the changeling to his own devices."
"You sound sure of yourself. But not everyone is so predictable," Oydd replied.
"You offer counsel, though you despise diplomacy?"
"I prefer a stratagem that I can plan more precisely."
"What's the fun in that? If you know the final outcome," Licephus joked, then suddenly grew serious. "I think, perhaps, you despise diplomacy because you are no good at it. I understand how people work, and have learned to rely on those instincts. Indech will strut about like a cock. He will parade his strength, and then feign indifference when we cut down the forgemaster."
"And if not?" Oydd pressed.
"And if not," Licephus replied, "then we scatter like the mice that we are." He leaned back and laughed.
Oydd groaned, but kept any further objections to himself. When the last rays of the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, he stood and called the dethkirok zombie to him, but the demon's corpse sat unmoved. Sensing his spell had faded, Oydd knelt by the demon's side and animated the corpse once again.
"How often must you repeat that?" Licephus asked.
"I don't know. I thought it would last longer. I think it resists me."
Licephus whistled to alert the mouseling and the druid, and began his descent from the grotto.
Oydd stared at the sunset as he walked. Even in the sun's absence, the horizon glowed orange and pink and purple, and it mesmerized the rudra.
He followed the vampire absently, and soon noticed the mouseling running along his side.
Despite his estimates, the trip took far more than an hour. The group entered an unpresuming cave—nothing more than a crack in a sheer wall of rock—which grew gradually as they progressed, expanding exponentially. They passed salt crystals and calcium deposits, then crystals of quartz and still, cool pools of water. Before long, the path ran along a chasm so vast that Oydd could not see the far side.
Crystals of all sorts and sizes grew along the walls. Some illuminated from within, some bright green or red or perfectly clear. Unusually clear.
However, as they descended, the crystals grew more and more consistently—long hexagonal shafts mostly of a deep royal blue or a dull metallic grey. Licephus ordered the others to keep any iron away from the metallic crystals, and Oydd switched his metal staff to his other hand, before moving further from the wall.
Deep in the pit at his side, the rudra heard a cackle, somewhere between sobbing and laughter. It resounded from the walls and eventually died out, but the sound stayed with him. He imagined a colossal hand reaching from the deep and drowning him in its fingers.
The mouseling huddled by his side, occasionally grazing the hem of his robes. Though they plunged as deep as Agoth, the air grew cold and the rudra spoke a word of magic, commanding his staff to warm him.
Skunk and the druid seemed unphased by the chill, and if he wasn't mistaken, the vampire rather enjoyed it.
By his estimation, they had traveled most of the night before the ground leveled out, and the vampire looked about to get his bearings.
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"Are we close?" Jeshu asked.
"Hmmm..." Licephus held up a hand, ordering the others to stay back, and stepped out before the group. "Do you smell that?"
"No," Jeshu said.
"I don't believe either of us have a very refined sense of smell," Oydd added.
"There's one nearby. Though the fomorians resemble trolls in some ways, the smell is quite different. Not a putrid odor, but pungent all the same."
Oydd sniffed the damp air and noted a scent similar to the chemicals he used to preserve bodies in his morgue. It stung his nostrils, and the rudra covered his beak in the sleeve of his robe.
Soon they heard the unmistakable sound of a giant approaching. Its slow, steady steps shook the floor. It paused, just out of sight, and let out a long deep sigh. Its hot breath froze in the air and billowed around the bend, confirming its presence.
The fomorian stepped into view, looking somewhat like a hairless, blue-skinned troll. It stood over fifteen feet tall—a scrawny specimen, by the vampire's account. It stooped to view the tiny intruders and smiled a toothless grin. A long, slow creaking sound escaped its throat, like the warping of floorboards. It leaned forward onto one of its hands and wobbled there on three limbs, leering down on the group.
Skunk growled.
"One of the Broken," Licephus whispered. "The lowest caste. Which makes it... more dangerous to us," he warned. The vampire drew his sword, but the giant only smiled dumbly, hovering over him, before turning and continuing on its way.
When it was again out of sight, the vampire explained, "The broken are malformed physically and mentally. They are not to be touched by the other castes. The danger," he concluded, "is their stupidity."
"Are they always runts?" Oydd inquired.
The vampire shook his head. "But the larger ones don't survive long. There simply isn't enough food. Come."
Licephus led the others deeper into Fomoria. Oydd found the cavern to be far more colorful than Al Tsiroth, which usually only varied from black to grey, with a few paler creatures. Here, even the dust gleamed a frosty blue. The cavern walls consisted, more often than not, of slick calcite deposits—also mostly in shades of blue, similar in hue to the luminescent mushrooms of Al Tsiroth.
As they proceeded, the rudra noticed the cavern walls were not raw and unformed, but crafted—fashioned by the hands of giants—to a consistent height of around sixty feet, and twice the breadth.
Licephus walked purposefully past rows and rows of gargantuan pillars carved from the crystals, then suddenly turned and marched down one final, empty hall. At the end, the rudra saw two fomorians standing sentry. They rose over twenty feet in height—less deformed than the Broken, though they each possessed noticeable defects, from mismatched limbs, to a missing eye. The taller giant's shoulder slanted so steeply that it simply let its head loll to the side while at rest. A large bulge protruded from its neck—a knot of muscle from holding the awkward position.
The giant bared its teeth at the sight of Licephus and laughed from its belly—a deep, mocking laughter.
It stepped forward while the shorter giant watched impassively—an almost pained look on its face.
"I like you! You are brave to return, little human."
The elf made no attempt to correct the giant. He bowed to the first, "Greetings, Goll." Then he bowed to the second. "And to your brother, Irgoll."
The fomorians looked to each other and chuckled. The smaller guffawed, as if the vampire's presence were the height of amusement.
"You remember our names, stupid human." The giant seemed more impressed than condescending, as if the observation were intended as a compliment.
"I have an audience with your king. We are expected."
The larger giant, Goll, turned again to his brother and the two erupted in laughter. Nonetheless, Irgoll, the smaller giant, stepped aside, opening the path to the king's audience chamber.
Undeterred, the vampire strode forward, with the others in his wake.
When Jeshu passed, the Irgoll reached out and shoved him, more out of curiosity than maliciousness. He nodded to himself in satisfaction when he failed to get a rise out of the dryad.
Likewise, Goll prodded the dethkirok as it passed, smugly, confirming his superior size.
With the vastness of the chamber, the long walk to the throne felt interminable. Six fomorians in total lined the sides of the room. One, Oydd presumed to be female based on her opulent build. Another two, adorned with jeweled trinkets, girded with skirts of fomorian femurs, and brandishing crude, twenty-foot hatchets, Oydd took to be the king's personal guard.
The king himself, Indech, came to the same height as his attendants while seated. Standing, he would surpass forty feet.
The king possessed only one eye, off-center on his face, and an impressive underbite. His three most prominent ivory teeth, each the size of the rudra, protruded upward at varying angles—one entering his nostril while at rest. A single curled, ramlike horn grew from his head where an ear ought to have been.
A necklace of whole horse carcasses hung from the giant's neck, some in more advanced stages of decay than others.
Upon seeing the vampire, the armed attendants hefted their stone hatchets onto their shoulders and straightened their backs, as much as possible. The king raised a hand, calling for silence, and then folded his fingers into a fist, pounding his chest. A shaggy white wool covered his forearm, and from a distance, Oydd could not tell if it were the hide of some beast or the king's natural body hair.
"Indech!" he proclaimed, and the giants around the room copied the gesture, repeating the king's name in a thunderous boom.
Licephus, following suit, pounded a fist against his chest and shouted, "Indech, king of the fomorians. Most mighty among giants. Most wise among mortals and gods. May he die old."
The king smiled a toothy, pompous grin, turning his disproportionately large nose up at the vampire.
The vampire knelt and lowered his gaze. Oydd and Jeshu knelt as well.
"I like that..." the giant king said in a low rumble, then repeated at a roar. "I like that! Most mighty." He stood and looked around the room. "Most wise."
The other giants, save for his attendants cowered and averted their eyes.
"The dull and simple humans worship Indech. Most ugly human," the king continued, addressing Oydd, "What is my name?"
With a very slight moan that escaped the attention of the fomorian king, the rudra pounded a fist against his chest and yelled, "Indech."
"Indech...?" the giant prodded.
"Indech the wise. Indech the mighty."
Indech's eyes narrowed. "Indech the most wise. Indech the most mighty."
He looked again on the vampire. "Why do you return, stupid human?"
"I seek a favor, if it is within my king's power," the vampire answered.
"All things," the fomorian roared in anger, as he plopped back down into his throne, "are within my power."
"I meant no offense, noble king. I did not know."
"Now you know," the king said, somewhat placated. "Why do you return?"
"I seek a creature, dull and simple, not mighty like my king."
"Speak his name and I will bring his head on a platter for the tiny human."
"Juhidra," the vampire said. "A changeling and a craftsman."
The king flinched, almost imperceptibly. He eyed the adamantite ring on his oversized hand.
"But he is cunning and slinking,” Licephus continued. “Too crafty for me to find."
The king clenched his jaw and growled. "He is not too crafty for king Indech."
"Of course not, most mighty."
"And most cunning," the king said, mostly to the other fomorians in attendance. "Most crafty." He eyed the female giant and beckoned her.
Terrified, the plump giant stumbled to his side.
"Find this... changeling," the king commanded. "And see to any of the human's other needs."
The female stared at her king, and widened her eyes pointedly, in some unspoken communication. But the king pretended not to notice, and the female beat a fist against her chest and cried "Indech!" before backing away from the king with her head bent low. She came within feet of trampling the vampire before turning, looking down upon him in disgust and ushering the tiny humanoids from the audience chamber.
Licephus bowed once more to the king, before turning to follow the giantess, passing by the kneeling rudra.
Once they had left the king's earshot, the vampire leaned in close to Oydd and whispered with a hint of alarm, "Where is the mouseling?"