Ch: 129 Play Freebird
Professor Glinntz enjoyed his interactions with his duke, generally; today was an exception. “Your grace, while I strongly support your educational reforms… My own research demands my presence at the fringe, wherever it now resides.”
“My good professor, viscount Kline will return soon and then we will both benefit from his highly useful gifts.” Abed smoothly turned things about on him, as was the cunning lord’s way.
“Kline, your elusive dreamcaster? Will I truly have access to him? He was resistant to my inquiries when we last met.” Professor Glinntz grumbled petulantly.
“You showed up at his family hold and asked for a sample of his ocular fluid, while he was at breakfast with his wife and child.” Abed’s voice was dry as can be, absolutely desiccated.
“I had to do some fast talking to calm him down after that. If he sees a needle, you are on your own.”
“Very well, I still think it was selfish of him. He has two eyes…” The elderly wizard was getting sulky and weird in his old age. Duke Mubarek suspected most of it was an affectation, designed to encourage young lords to leave him in peace.
“I will instruct him to accommodate any reasonable request. Don’t you dare try poking him with anything, he will have my recommendation and encouragement to poke back. The man is my captain of lance, whatever his other gifts may be.” Mubarek’s cold gaze cut through professor Glinntz’s glib jollity.
“I wouldn’t really have… I thought we could bargain down to a sample of his tears… intractable.” He muttered. “Knights, always grabbing for swords, explains why there are so few knights in the library.” The old man got a dreamy look in his eye.
“Yes, that’s why the library is not popular… that and it’s a secret, you old goat brained fool.” The duke grumbled fondly at his tutor.
“Speaking of that, our trade boat…connection was in town.” The old wizard peered around as though now worried he might be overheard. “She had the most delightful, complete work. I haven't even begun it yet, it’s been so hectic.”
He smiled happily, as he passed the slim volume over. “It’s about a beautiful pirate princess and her harem of naughty slave monsters… quite titillating.”
“Complete, you say…” Mubarak whispered. “Wait, you haven’t finished it… why are you giving this up? What are you hiding, old man?”
Shamefaced, he opened the curtained bookshelf in his office and extracted a large volume. “It’s something new, a book for children, with colorful printed illustrations… I hesitated to show you during our current…-”
“Show me now, professor.” He snapped, becoming entirely a duke in an instant. The volume he took from the old man was not hefty, it was printed on bulk paper, common stock a ‘common book’ if such a thing can be said to exist… and yet there it was.
The edges of the pages were simply trimmed, not even gilt. Simple cardstock binding and a title in an elegant script, it was simply a thing of pure utility, a book and nothing more.
“Who would ever bother to print such a common book?” He wondered. “It would sell for only a few coins at best, even as a curiosity… a book for children indeed.”
He read the simple black ink title from the plain brown cover. “The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling… Odd, to display the author’s name.”
The duke cracked the cover and was met with a large, block printed frontispiece:
This significant work of Human Cultural Heritage is distributed freely to all sentients, by authority of:
The Temple Of Man’s Knowledge
The Orphan’s League Of Man
The Eldritch Fae Book Club
The Cult Of Secrets
Reprinting and distribution permitted freely. Request additional volumes in the Human Heritage Collection from:
The Orphan’s League Of Man, Wheatford branch.
“Damn that Belen! I knew it had to be the educational reforms my agent in Port Fallon mentioned!” He crowed in victory, while turning to the first page, a brilliantly illustrated image of a young, dark skinned straight haired child, swinging mostly naked through a jungle.
Rich, bright inks and pigments showed real attention to detail in the printer’s and bookbinder’s arts. The text that accompanied was a wonder all its own.
“Request all the other volumes mentioned, I will learn the secret of his gifted orphans… Literacy must be the key. How much did this volume cost you?”
“Nothing, it was given freely, by Journeyman Esperanza, on the trade boat. This copy she gifted to me, on the promise that I would not sell it, nor keep it, but read, or copy it and pass it along to another, freely.” He fretted at the strangeness of the thing.
“Likewise, a crate of books in this series were delivered to your orphanage this very morning, by the trade boat crew. Also without cost.”
“Cagy, Belen, very cagy. He knows mine are illiterate… I’ll be years catching up to that villian.” Mubarek complained. “Bring me the woman, Esperanza, I would speak to her about the publisher…” The duke said firmly, thinking the matter over fully.
“They sailed at mid day, Your grace, something about a schedule, I will make your invitation when next they make port.”
#
Mubarak stomped away in a mild fury. The book in his grasp was too enticing to really allow him to build up a rage. Fantasies of reading such a book to his own children, with his beloved sprawled on his lap drove his anger down, as he flipped the pages idly.
Back in his chambers he still clutched the book and flipped pages in an overwrought state.
Skimming the text and savoring the bright, charming images kept his mind off of Belen’s perfidy and sneaking cleverness. “Of course a jumped up orphan would have insights into how to extract the most from his fellows.”
“No doubt he had some secret training camp established in a hidden place, culling his crop of waifs for the exceptionally gifted few and training those into an elite strike force of young warriors.”
“Such a wealth of young talent would certainly allow any expansion minded lord to..”
“And when those elite orphans come up for indenture and Belen must bid on them, against you and all the other lord’s and guild agents?” Jaspreet asked, before he realized he had been speaking his every thought aloud to her. Just as he had since they were children.
“You have woven a daisy chain of the thinnest stems, it will never hold together.” She whispered as she kissed him.
"The Orphans League then… They have been active lately, meddling in that silly candy dispute Belen has been mulling over. They advocated for the educational reforms in Port Fallon too, I wonder…”
“Neither could the Orphan’s League create this sudden bounty. When it was just mad old Zygnos, Belen seemed a harmless oddity. To the conservatives, he was a distraction which allowed you to remain unmarried.” She said quietly, sitting in his lap as he paged through the beautiful illustrations.
“This is a remarkable book.” She took his hands in hers and flipped back to the beginning, at the bold printed label. “Something is afoot and Belen is involved… let me read this with you and we will see what secrets it holds.”
He settled in for a very cozy evening, it was snug and nice… but something was missing.
“What if we snuck out to old Sandyass’ orphanage and read the story to the kids?” Jaspreet asked, with a sly grin.
“Can I bring my travel kit? I spotted a girl with the most atrocious bangs…” He asked, smiling hopefully.
“The small kit, leave the hair washing basin at home.” She said with fond and firm directness. “Bring the wine.”
#
Tater walked into the stable for a drink from the everflowing water trough in the corner and directly into a shimmering mass of silken threads. The clinging, wispy stuff tangled in her eyelashes and got in her mane, her mane!
She gave a very controlled and dignified whinny of abject terror, which the eight legged creature completely overreacted to.
“Defiler of the sacred precincts! Begone, fourlegs! This temple is closed to you!” The thing chittered, dangling from the rafters.
Mortified, shocked and offended beyond endurance, Tater ran off into the garden to tattle on the angry golden orb weaver.
#
Annie and the spider were having trouble coming to an understanding…
“This home, the garden and that human dwelling, they are all protected from flying biters and crawling itchies. We do not need a spider guardian.” She whispered to the comparatively tiny creature.
“Your people come and go without trouble since you are not a threat to we who dwell here. The livingdeadboy calls it a ward… but he says that is also his name… he’s very odd, even for a human.”
“So it is no concern if I dwell here then. I would watch over Deathshadow and this holy place.” He squeaked angrily. “I attempted to move into the twolegs dwelling, but blessed Deadminder made a loud and terrible noise and chased me with some awful weapon.” He dropped a stitch in his weave, he was so very distraught at the memory.
“Ahh… the brooom. A human tool, it seems to be used for moving things around… she must have been trying to guide you.” Magnus offered helpfully.
“Broooms are like curry brushes with long handles. They groom the floor with them, I’ve seen it. You are very wise, Magnus.” Sheri nickered softly while nuzzling his throat. “I like that you have something between your ears… not just between your flanks.” Her snuffling nose brought a soft whinny of delight to his lips.
“Mammals, please, this is a holy place, sanctified to She Who Spins In The Void…” Hithsil’isthi’ss began, very reasonably. “If you would please vacate, I must cleanse this place in her name. My altar shroud is nearly ready.” He made polite shooing motions at the equines and said ‘scat!’ only once or twice.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
#
“Gary, Annie says there’s a giant spider in her quarters, he’s trying to throw the horses out.” Becky called down into the workshop. “If you don’t take care of it, she’s gonna tell Shai.”
He was grumbling under his breath as he went out to Annie’s home. Something about a ‘black flag’ or a ‘raid’ on somewhere or something.
She only caught the end of whatever he told the enormous orbweaver in the rafters:
“...Just be the best spider you can be, spin your web and take your prey cleanly, give them dignity at the end and be kind to every living thing and sentient species… except the skeeters, those guys suck hard. Go with Thirp, brother.” Gary finished, gently easing the big arachnid outside.
“I hear your words, Deathshadow. I will obey. I go forth as your missionary, carrying your words to everyspider! Death to all heretics and unbelievers!” He squeaked and chittered in zealous fury.
“No, dude, that’s the opposite of what I just said…” He began, trying to get in around the rapidly squeaking chatterbug.
“Yes, fangs in the night for those who would deny her grace… venom dropping wounds are the sacrament of her mercy…” The massive creature was slowly crawling across the meadow, headed for the woods, still muttering furiously about ‘infidels’.
Gary produced his trusty old recorder and began to play a slow ponderous tune. Another Gary joined in, playing a slight variation and another with a bass recorder and another with the violin. Soon, a dozen shadow musicians were winding together a tense, dramatic, even portentous orchestral fanfare, screaming out a potent and passionate musical torrent.
From the sky above, as ‘O’ Fortuna’ reached its massive, climactic crest, a brilliant green and gold form streaked through the late afternoon sun. Her iridescent scales shifted through the spectrum, into a glorious scarlet as she swooped.
A soft, wet, crunching sound and a cry of reptilian joy marked the end of Hithsil’isthi’ss’ dreams of an arachnid theocracy.
“Iguaneagle, wild predator native to these forests.” Vreek said quietly, from the shade of a plum tree. “I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he seemed a real asshole.”
They watched the giant, bat winged reptile fly off, with a twelve pound spider in its talons, still struggling weakly.
“The god of beasts rejoices in our victory, while mourning our prey.” Vreek said quietly.
#
Carrick took his duties as duke’s lifeguard seriously, even in this place of sublime comforts and terrors. The absurd number of giant and colossal spiders in the area was alarming all by itself.
The fact that multiple species were tolerating each other was startling, watching them collaborate and cooperate was just too much. He avoided looking out the windows now. Watching that big yellow one get taken by an iguaneagle was satisfying, but there were still so many out there.
Watching the madman have a conversation with the hideous thing was only the six or seventh weirdest thing today.
“Come away from the window, Carrick, we are safe here.” His liege commanded. “Gary says he will be having a talk with the spider goddess tonight. I expect things to be better in the morning.”
“Forgive me your grace, your new friend, the moontouched, peasant hedge witch, is hardly able to walk and talk at the same time… I will withhold judgment for now.” Carrick said primly.
“Your impartiality in the matter is noted. ‘Peasant hedge witch’? That was a bit harsh.” He complained.
“Call it as I see it your grace.” He said calmly.
“He is a ‘whole vibe’ as he puts it. Do try to be polite, they are my friends.” Julius stood and headed for the chamber door. “Let’s go see who is haunting that lovely pianoforte at the moment. Masters Waller and Brubeck have some interesting ideas.”
Nobody, or rather noone, was haunting the pianoforte, the common room was nearly empty. His four bodyguards were sitting at ease, in off duty leather armor, enjoying a simple meal of stew and biscuits.
They snapped to attention when he emerged, then resumed eating at his casual wave. “Relax, we are miles from town. Philip can’t give you any demerits here.” he said with a smile. “Where are my young friends?”
“Basement I think, yer grace. Beggin yer pardon fer sayin sir… grace, duke?” The biggest man said, blushing furiously.
“Sir Penryn was it? Promoted in the field for bravery in action against that cult… Count Jagdeep Singh felt you worthy of joining my guard and my gallant list of belted knights errant.” He grinned at the red faced man.
“I would have knighted you for that stir fried pork… best shield-work I’ve seen.”
“Beggin yer dukness’ pardon he ne’er knew aught of that. ‘Ee’s vegetarian.” The man’s craggy, scarred face seemed even more dejected.
“Chin up sir Pennryn. This journey is not done yet.” The duke said with good cheer before ducking down into the workshop, with Carrick in hot pursuit.
“Your grace, I should enter first…” The guardian called feebly. “Bloody peasant hedge witches…”
#
Carrick and the duke slipped quietly into the group seated around a large chalkboard covered with complex and confusing diagrams.
Gary was strutting about confidently, holding his slender bamboo rod and pointing to sections of the indecipherable tangle on the board. He lectured in a tone that was higher and less singsong than his usual way, he sounded almost erudite and childlike at once as he spoke.
The musician barely noticed as the pair joined his lecture on… whatever it was.
“...so here we see the baseline formula for etheric output decay. We see that unregulated etheric emissions break down into normal background magic at a consistent rate, decaying exponentially as we move out from the source.”
He moved his pointing rod to another section of the board, as his friends scribbled in notepads.
“Now we add in the parameters for a living human soul. We took these readings from the big fellow upstairs, since he’s never been in Gary’s bath.”
Where the first example was a tangle of lines and numbers, arrayed with no apparent logic, Pennryn’s was a ring of script, endlessly looping and braiding in among itself in an endless circle, filled with a tangle of indecipherable magical inscriptions.
He seemed very relaxed, speaking of himself in third person and holding forth like a scholar in a lecture hall.
“Note, inside the aegis of his mortal aura, etheric decay stops entirely. Every mortal soul has a tiny nugget of the ether inside, the source of all life, magic and sentience. This effect is very natural and normal, not to mention, essential to all life.”
“So that’s how normal rank, uncontracted kids can use those crazy stink earrings… crazy.” Dannyl whispered to Becky.
“Exactly, young Dannyl, keen minded as ever.” The big musician sang in childlike glee. “Those trinkets operate by resonating with that tiny mote of essential magic within the soul and that is what powers the item. That is also why they cannot accept a new owner, once activated. He built the curse in because he is a bit of a vengeful jerk, sometimes.”
A well manicured hand raised from the back row. “Yes…” He paused awkwardly, trying to place the face.
“Ah! Julius Rummel, duke of Port Clement, You had a question?”
“Yes, I do. Gary, are you quite well? You seem… different.” Julius spoke gently, and with deep concern, which seemed to disappoint and sadden his new friend.
“Gary never mentioned me? Never spoke of me?” He turned slowly, surveying his deeply uncomfortable audience. “None of you mentioned me?” He asked sadly.
“It’s not like that buddy,” Becky began, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Things are complicated, he can’t tell everybody, everything all at once, that would be…” She stopped, flushing a deep dark color on her cheeks.
“Crazy, Becky? You can say it. You think everyone will think we are crazy.” He whispered. “I understand, I’ll just go wait till you need me… in the dark and dismal abyss.”
“Ok! I’ll do it… You are really getting good at that guilt trip move.” She grumbled at the big madman.
“Duke Julius Rummel, please meet Marduk, The Light of Reason, Keeper of Man’s True Heritage, God of Knowledge and Lore.”
“You can call him Ducky.” Amy sang from over her coloring book. “You gotta meet Thirp, too. She’s getting better at bein’ human… kinda.”
“Amy! I was going to tell him to call me ‘Ducky’, humans always look so amusingly horrified by that.”
The strange being stamped his foot in frustration, in a way that was completely alien to the Gary, Julius knew…
“Ducky… god of knowledge…?” Duke Rummel was already seated, which prevented an embarrassing fall from further damaging his battered dignity.
“I read Belen’s report on the issue, I thought it to be some wild miscommunication, or perhaps some activity of the strange cult that Jagdeep encountered.”
He felt an arm fall over his shoulders, in a comradely embrace. The strange entity wearing his new freind’s body held the shaken duke tenderly. “Your world is changing, duke of men, we shall have to see what we can make of it… together.”
Something about the entity’s voice soothed the confused and worried lord, something about the creature felt right and welcoming.
“You feel it too. You should have been mine… War has no place in your soul. He squirms in your mind, knowing he does not belong there, yet is unable to release his ritual Contract. Stubborn fool, he clings to the very weight that will drag him… and the rest of us, down into darkness.”
Gary’s face was pale and sheened with sweat when he released his embrace and stood. “Becky my love, please take over, the boy is nearly spent… he needs to be awake enough to listen as well.”
Gary’s body handed the baton over to Becky and sank into a sofa with Shai, he let out a shuddering gasp as he sat, breathing heavily.
“Sorry Jules, I meant to get you up to speed before you guys met. I knew you’d get along though.” He rested his head on Shai’s shoulder as Becky took up the lecture.
“So, every soul contains a fleck of the essential nature of the universe itself, every soul: human, beastkin, animal, even gods and demons. In a physical reality, especially this one, that essence will quickly erode away unless protected by a living Animus and aura, that’s why ghosts are so uncommon, usually.”
Her rod moved to another diagram with a soft clacking sound, as bronze tapped on slate. “When a rupture in the etheric veil attaches to a living animus, in transit through the veil we get… well… Me.”
She smiled brightly at four strange figures seated in a sofa and listening raptly. “I’m what the dryads call a ‘druid’. A living human soul, transmigrated through the veil and reborn here. I naturally exude Etheric magic into the world at a steady rate. As a result, my natural gifts are becoming magically active much more rapidly, as my Contracts grow.” The scratching of pen nibs on paper filled the room as she paused to let them catch up.
Unlike Pennryn, her symbols and glyphs were in a sensible and logical arrangement, written far more densely and in a tiny hand. The graceful braided circle of script was there, but larger, thicker and very much more complex.
Lines and angles jutted outside of the circle in three places, like hooks, awaiting an ornament, as though she were a festive wreath, being decorated by an unknown hand.
“If we compare figures one through three, we see a natural progression, unguarded, unguided emissions decay almost immediately. Inside a living aura, this stops and only beyond that aura radius, does the decay resume. The third example is my current output calculation, about five times that of a normal, baseline adult human at Iron rank. So if we adjust for those parameters we get figure four.” She tapped the next group of complicated formulae.
“This is a rough comparison, were he and I similar in rank and size. Notice an approximate tenfold difference in our magical output, my aura radius extends about five times farther than his as well.”
“You mentioned my man, Pennryn, I trust you asked his permission before doing something magical with him?” The duke asked, rather firmly.
“He was very accommodating, Lord Julius.” Ivy replied from somewhere in Tallum’s shadow. “He agreed to let us measure him again after he gets out of the bath. We are all very excited at what we may learn.”
“Yes,” Tallum rumbled quietly. “This ‘Scientific Method’ thing Becky invented, is very clever and useful… and so obvious in hindsight.”
“Becky…” Gary began, sounding like his usual self, in his lyrical accent and less… erudite speech. “Have you been… Oww!”
Strong calloused fingers grabbed his ear and twisted lovingly, bringing a yelp of humble realization from the big musician.
“Ye did say ye would trust our judgment, an that of Thirp an Ducky. This ‘Science’ thing be wrought by human minds, tis our birthright.” Shai said firmly, while kissing his cheek. She kept the ear though, Becky was still lecturing.
“Amy, Wilford and Rio are also in the ‘druid’ category, roughly. They have… more connection to their etheric voids than I do with mine…” Her baton tapped a significantly more convoluted array of glyphs and sigils, connected with swirling symbols and writhing lines of script.
“These are Rio’s readings, as you see he is already more completely suffused with etheric magic than I am, Amy and Wilf are in a very similar state. That is why he and the others are able to use the enchanted objects Gary leaves lying around, despite having no Contracts at all.”
“Hey! They aren’t dangerous…” He complained, until Shai gave her captured ear a gentle tug, to remind him who was in charge.
“Whatever, ya big mook…” Becky grumbled as he moved on. “This is the troubling part here.” She tapped the final geometric pattern on the board.
Much like the baseline human glyph, it was complex, but far less so, than the other examples, save for the first. The most striking difference was in the overall shape of the thing.
The references for Becky and the kids were complicated and elaborate assemblies of symbols and runes scattered and linked by lines of arcane writing. Jagged and convoluted tangles of words, numbers and symbols were strewn in logically haphazard ways that were organic and slightly chaotic, natural perhaps.
The last was a gracefully woven braid of words and symbols as smooth and elegant as any work of calligraphy. Much like Sir Pennryn’s representation, they were completely enclosed inside the braided, endless knot representing the aura radius.
Inside the endlessly intertwined circles, rather than the sprawling, complicated and convoluted mess that the others held, clear and logical glyphs representing the six prime attributes were evenly and carefully spaced. Smooth and clear lines of incomprehensible code stretched from one to another, in a network that was both complex and serenely logical.
“This is Tawny’s reading…” She said quietly as the others took notes. “As you can see… something is very different with her. We ran Liam, Dannyl, Tallum and Ivy as well… the same results.”
“Before you ask, we ran Khan, Luna and Nara as well, they came back with results in line with Sir Pennryn’s readings.” Much humming and hawing came from the note taking mages sitting around. Especially the sofa filled with small figures, over in the shadows.
Axio’s sweet, high voice came from that corner. “That is interesting, do you have any theories to explain these anomalies?”
“Just one that fits. Your Contract rituals are even more fucked up than we suspected.” Gary mumbled quietly from Shai’s arms. “We gotta get back to Port Clement and take Frankie’s readings… I think he’s gonna be important as a control sample.”
“Whae dae ye mean by that? Be some danger tae young Frankie Knubbel?” Shai demanded, in an aggressively maternal way.
“No babe, ‘cause he was born inside my aura, swirling around in my EveryThingEveryWhereAllTheTime, he should be untouched by the nasty magical traps hidden in those Contract rituals. I bet he’s gonna look a lot like Tawny and the rest, all neatly organized and tidy.”
“In that case, someone grab that big human upstairs and dunk him in the pool…” Plumeria fussed from her seat with Axio. “I feel like my roots have been digging in dry sand and just reached rich, wet soil… when I bask in your lovely aura’s.”
“If what you suggest is true… we have been deceived more thoroughly than any could have suspected.” Maple muttered darkly. “We shall have sweet vengeance for this…”
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