Ch: 132 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
The duke’s mad new friends spun musical mayhem down the road, playing as they rode, letting their mounts set the pace. Or so it seemed… The pace itself was a difficult thing to determine.
Trees and meadows flashed by at an alarming speed, when the guards took a moment from watching the forest for threats to their liege, to notice.
They stopped for a late lunch, Dannyl, Becky and Ivy hopped down and trotted over to Gary, stretching and shaking out the kinks. He passed the trio a brace of scythes, which he produced from nowhere. In moments, they were busy cutting grasses and stacking boughs cut from the understory of broadleaf trees.
The kids ran and skipped with Axio, all over the newly mowed meadow, until they wound down and sprawled in a pile, on a blanket in the sun. While the kids worked their energy out, Liam, Tallum, Shai and Khan tended the mounts.
Gary received detailed and constant horsemanship and animal husbandry advice from the experienced riders and wound up doing most of the actual grooming and work.
“Annie… I love you but I can’t brush you any more, my arms are about to fall off.” He mumbled to the massive horse. A moment later he yelped and started brushing her again, while holding one buttcheek tenderly.
“Did she just nip your butt?” Becky called from the other side of the little herd of spoiled brats.
“She’s been hanging out with Luna, she said: ‘everything is cultivation.’ Big meanie bit me right on the crease too.” He complained, while continuing to groom the enormous equine.
“It’ll be fine, I’ll give her some carrots to get the taste out of her mouth.” Khan thought he was hilarious… so did the others.
“Bunch of jerks. Shai, they’re being mean to me.” He whined, still rubbing his backside.
“Your grace… they are children…” Carrick complained quietly, while watching a band of idiots play grabass in the wilderness.
“Yes indeed! Grand, is it not?” Julius grabbed a paper wrapped sandwich from a big wicker hamper and joined the pile on the lawn, chewing happily.
Vreek sank down beside the duke with a trio of wooden mugs and passed one over. Nara settled across the blanket with a basket of her own and began dealing out strange things.
A number of delicate, lacquered wooden boxes appeared from her hamper. She removed the lids from the flat rectangular containers, as she set them out. Each one contained an assortment of small, brightly colored morsels, in a wild array of colors and shapes. A clay crock of cold, sticky rice came out last.
“Becky and Dannyl prepared this, for Vreek and myself… we will share with you if you wish, duke of men. This is an exciting foreign dish my young friends discovered… somewhere. They were vague, as to the details. She calls it sooshee!”
“Is that cold rice and raw fish? Thank you, but I will abstain… this ‘meatloaf sandwich’ is going to put me to sleep if I’m not careful. So filing…” He tasted the contents of his mug and giggled with delight.
“The mad boy calls this thing, ‘gingerbeer’ or something… perhaps it is best left for humans to enjoy.” Vreek set his mug down with a confused expression and turned on the small, flat boxes of delightfully colorful morsels.
“Is that monster salmon onigiri? Spicy rockfish handrolls, ohh…! I see glazed leech unagi!” Gary had somehow joined them, completely unnoticed and scooped up Vreek’s abandoned mug.
“We eat stuff like this back home… I haven’t seen anything…” Slowly he scanned his friends faces and smiled. “Was it Becky?” He asked Nara, who shifted awkwardly.
“I was told to not let you see these, she worries they are not quite correct yet… whatever that means. Now I owe Becky and Dannyl a debt, boy.” Nara mewed sourly and pushed a small nugget of sticky rice, topped with thinly sliced monster salmon, into her mouth.
“I won’t tell… just gimme that demonic cod roe handroll and your fishy secret is safe… and an unagi bowl…” He grinned wickedly and stole off to savor his dubious treats under a willow tree, in secret.
“This is delicious, duke of man… your human habit of cooking fish is very strange, except the fried things, and the grilled ones, or steamed…” Vreek kept talking, between happy purrs and delighted mews.
#
When the strange crew departed, nothing remained but a new mowed meadow and some songbirds, pecking at crumbs.
The music began again, the clip clop of hooves falling into a steady rhythm and pushing the song down the road. As they devoured the miles, wrapped in whatever strange magic made the birds sing in harmony with the musicians, sir Pennryn was first to notice.
“Campfire ahead… no, a settlement, I see a chimney pot through the trees.” He called back from his position as outrider.
“Mudwallow bridge is a pretty weak name for such a nice town!” Gary had his banjo out and was working on something he called ‘Ghost Riders in The Sky’ with the little ones.
“A person who’s songs are all about ghosts and devils should not be so quick to judge. Wheatford is a name unprepossessing as well… to those of us who do not enjoy grains the way you primates do.” Vreek flicked his tail into the musician’s ear as he rode to the front on his happy, brown and white pony.
“Regardless, it should be a half a day to the outlying settlements… Who has built a home here?” Jules wondered aloud.
He got his answer when they passed out of the trees, into the open lowlands and Mudwallow Bridge town’s outskirtyest bits.
“Tallum, Liam, could you guys take the lead at the lumberyard? I don’t need a repeat of last time.” He asked, as the music wound down.
#
By sixth bell, the house was spread out over that same island in the beaver pond. The three boys headed over to the lumberyard to get things settled.
Harrl the master miller was not enthusiastic, when Liam and the big smith laid out their plan. Gary chilled in the background, while they talked. There were a lot of frantic gestures and some pointing, but eventually Tallum waved the lunatic over to get started.
Parts began appearing, all manner of parts. Iron, bronze, painted metal and wood items proliferated; soon, the mill yard was scattered with organized piles of… stuff.
Harrl and his crew had been about to knock off anyway, most stayed to watch, just from curiosity. When Gary and Tallum took sledges and disassembled their waterwheel, their interest took a more active turn. Liam headed them off as they stomped forward on their stubby legs.
“I guarantee their work, you will be satisfied… and more, these two are… uncommon skilled.” Liam used all his powers of persuasion, when that failed he stood in their way.
“If I tell them to, they will reassemble your mill… But you will never know what they are building over there… and you will still be stuck with that enormous log.” He smiled and draped an arm around the miller’s ‘shoulders’
“How did you even get that here?” He asked, launching a well planned charm offensive.
“Oh, I have a small cask of beer and a number of mugs with me, fancy that. Perhaps you might enjoy a bowl of hummus and a tray of fresh vegetables, anyone interested?”
A folding table appeared, along with a dizzying array of snacks, beer, mugs, a samovar of hot water and an assortment of tea blends… someone had been scheming.
A man’s voice came drifting over to the nervously snacking aquatic mammals. “You guys made a really generous counter offer… so I decided to have some fun with this. Having fun Tallum?” He sang out to the beavers and his comrades, addressing the small crowd as his hammer kept time.
“Having fun.” The big man deadpanned, he was grinning and hammering along in time as they drove the old axle out of its socket.
With a merry clippity clop and the jingling of Shai’s bells, the Mystery Machine trundled up, bearing a number of large steel hoops and wooden parts.
“Ye hae done too much, ye mad boy. Aye but it will be a work of beauty.” Shai slipped to the ground and started swaying, while Sandi and Annie trotted over to the boys.
“Hi, Girls! Strike up the tune Shai, I’ve got my hands full here.” He crooned, harmonizing with his saw. “Start us off slow please love, we have some demolition and deconstruction to do.”
#
“Amy, that song you sang last evening… Where did you learn such a thing?” Julius asked, while Becky was working on dinner with Tawny. “It was very complex…”
“I dunno, I never heard it before.” Her tiny brow was furrowed in concentration over her ukulele. “Gary’s magic made me sing it. I know lots of other songs!
Why are there so many,
Songs about rainbows,
And what’s on the other siiiiide?
There was no talking to her until the song was done. She did a rousing rendition of the strange tune, he supposed… It was bizarrely charming, hopeful and melancholy, such an odd song, for so young and cheerful a child. Her soaring, dulcet voice rang off the rafters and set the instruments on the walls chiming along in harmony.
Her two brothers played along, Wilford on a tenor uke and Rio in his beloved bongos.They played with surprising skill, for such little children.
They dropped some notes here and there, Rio got a case of the giggles and lost the beat for a moment, but otherwise they were excellent.
“I can’t do the kermit voice…” She sighed as her sweet song ended. “You should really hear Gary do Kermit.”
“That was lovely, but how does he ‘make’ you sing a song you don’t know? Do you hear the words in your mind or something like that?” He pressed gently, while pouring her a cup of iced tea.
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“I dunno… he’s weird. When’s Shai coming back? I wanna dance…” Amy paused suddenly, and tilted her head to one side, listening. “Ooo… I wanna dance with somebody…” She spoke with an odd, singsong inflection crooning softly in her high piping voice.
With a wide smile, she began to pop and strut, swinging her elbows and hips in time to the faint music coming from outside the gate.
OOoo, I wanna dance…
with somebody, who lo-oves me!
“They’re home!” Becky called over the stratospheric song of Whitney Huston, in miniature currently dominating the scene in the common room.
Rio and Wilford were not helping, They seized their simple instruments with new confidence and started laying it down, pudgy children’s fingers flying over skins and strings with surprising skill. Far more proficiency than they had displayed just moments before.
The puzzled duke watched as the tiny kids became a solid trio, joined by their equally strange parents just a few bars later in the song.
“The shadows…” Carrick whispered to the duke, softly as he watched the little family play together. “Look at the children’s shadows. Do you see it? Witchcraft! Shadow magic, or something darker and less wholesome… We should leave this place, my duke.”
Indeed there was something odd about the children’s shadows, they were larger and darker than the lighting should account for… They seemed to move oddly too, as though anticipating, or coaching the tiny musicians from behind.
Don'tcha wanna dance, say you wanna dance, don'tcha wanna dance?
Don'tcha wanna dance, say you wanna dance, don'tcha wanna dance?
Amy spun into Shai’s arms, still singing the outro with all she had. She stopped there, when she saw how sweaty and dirty Tallum and Gary were. The boys were filthy with sawdust, metal flakes and thick, tarry grease, all over their hands, arms and grubby clothing.
“Ooo! Gross!” She wailed in exaggerated horror at the sight of them.
“Aye, dirty boys intae the baths… Liam, bring yer new friends along wi them, I’d nae have them nibbling on the garden plantings…” Shai herself was sheened with sweat in the cool evening and flushed with exertion as she swayed and played her violin.
She had obviously danced the entire way from the sawmill, since Liam was riding the cart behind Sandi. The cart held a generous dozen, mostly drunk beaver and muskrat folk, piled in the wagon bed. They continued wriggling and jostling with the now mostly empty beer keg, filling mugs and singing along to Amy’s ecstatic music, with slurred and confused voices.
“My friends are unconventional, lord Carrick… and slightly haunted…” He smiled and nodded at the faintly glowing ghost, with the pencil mustache and outrageous blue suit. The spirit stepped from the space behind the pianoforte and the darker shadows there.
“...I fInd them charming.” He turned back to the joyous spirit who was conducting the whole mess, with that enchanted stick, clenched in his spectral hand.
“Good evening, master Calloway!”
#
“Julius hae been asking questions lad, think well ere ye answer, when he asks thee. Secrets ye hae, the keeping of them is a matter ye do struggle wi.” She murmured when they were finally upstairs and alone.
“Yeah, I get that.” He nestled in closer, pressing against her with a sigh. “I’m feeling… constrained again, like I need to spread out more. That should be family only time.”
“Ye hae already gone bottomless in the private baths…. Poor Dannyl hae still nightmares, betimes they shall pass… Whae else might occur? The wasps be troubling enough.” Shai let the warmth of him wash over her body, his quiet breath and soft voice lulled her away.
“Luna says I’m a whisker away from iron rank, maybe a little time with just us, in the wilds is what I need… that and a few minutes to practice the fingering for ‘Malagueña’.” It wasn’t a whisper in her ear that brought her fully awake again.
“I’ll figure out how to silence the instruments tomorrow.” He grumbled roughly, lost in concentration.
“Shush, boy, an kiss me while ye do that… an dinnae stop on yer life!”
#
The other home was still expanding, spreading into the eternal vastness steadily. A few acres of woodland had sprung up beyond the orchards; wild and tangled, they seemed dangerous. Under those boughs in the shaded brambles and trails, anything could lurk.
A swathe of fields, planted with crops in all stages of growth surrounded what had been a floating clot of soil in the never, just over by nowhere at all. Glimmering starlight, as bright as a mid spring morning covered the little domain, from no discernable source.
The kids’ island had grown noticeably, while Becky’s seemed nearly independent. She floated freely, tethered only by a sturdy bridge of vines and creepers. Maple stood near the foot of the bridge on the Becky side, looking very handsome in spring foliage.
Shai was still wiggly and giggly from her bedtime music lesson, while Gary was a bit lethargic yet. He struggled downstairs after managing to look out the window, at Shai’s desperate and excited urging.
“Come on lad, I’d see what’s new on us, I do feel it too, Iron rank an summat other changes are nigh in ye boy. In us soon, I’ll be taking Contract wi the spirit of Fire this night!”
“Wow, exciting! Can I watch?” He begged, fully awake now. “I’ve never met Fire, most of the others have swung by, but Fire, Light and Earth have been absent.” Shai stopped on the garden path into the new orchard, where the kids were chasing Thirp through the fruit trees.
“All Mortals are bound tae Earth, boy, the spirit of Earth be right below us, where’er we walk, especially here. Not every mortal hae affinity fer Fire, nor fer Light. Thou art poorly matched wi both, whilst sweet Shai, who is thy true love hae, affinity wi both. Go now, catch those silly children in the orchard!”
#
Gary woke to a delegation of beaver and muskrat spouses, come looking for their groggy and still mildly wasted mates.
“Rreebuild the whole damn mill… he said… and they did…” Harrl sloshed over his mate. “The beer ish not bad either.”
“Yes, I’m sure it was very exciting.” Krizza muttered, while dragging him out. “Getting into this condition with these strange humans… lucky they didn’t make a hat of you…” She scolded the poor fellow while shooting dirty looks at Gary.
“That felt a little mean…” His soft, midnight complaint went unheard as the stumbling woodworkers staggered off into the dark.
He had a surplus of energy, buzzing and rattling his bones from the inside, so he slipped downstairs to work in the early morning hours.
It was a grim vibe down in the lab, a trio of shadows had guitar, bass and drums playing a darkly percussive tune. Lingering, slow and ponderous like the heavy low clouds of a powerful storm, it rolled along while he worked at the bench. He perched on a stool, cutting fragrant wood with his tiny handheld, rotary device.
As he worked, his voice rang out in a strangely inflected drone.
Riders on the storm…
There's a killer on the road,
His brain is squirmin' like a toad,
Take a long holiday,
Let your children play.
If you give this man a ride,
Sweet family will die.
Killer on the road, yeah…
“...You won’t be killing anything, not anymore, little guy. I feel your vibe though. Now you need to feel mine.” He spoke to the strange, hollow iron sculpture. Something lurked in the thing’s eyes now, something inhuman and darkly alien.
“I’m making you a face, but you need to understand, you only get one shot, one opportunity…” He smiled to himself. “You aren’t ready for that yet.”
#
Abed dropped the message to his desk in disgust. “Common orphans displaying some new ability to slide across the ground at high speeds, chocolate flooding the streets, Port Fallon must be in utter chaos.” He fumed, while clutching another message, freshly arrived by courier boat.
“Now I have fresh news, the orphans of Port Fallon now possess this stench abating magic which still eludes all my efforts!” That scroll joined its mate on the desktop.
“This comes from Port Clement, rumors are spreading that some swamp witch has cracked the mosquito problem…” A smile crossed his handsome features, anything that discomfited those vermin was a blessing to all living beings.
“Even more mysteriously, some use for the things has been found, at least someone is trying to sell parts of the creatures.” A small glass bottle containing some purpleish, green veined wad of offal, preserved in brine accompanied the scroll. A label on the stopper red:
‘Venom sack? Use unknown, one copper bit, purchased in Ease Way Village.’
Jaspreet took the disgusting sample and set it down with the scrolls with a sad sigh.
“Word is that Belen’s new mad mage is supervising a team of pre-indenture Adventurers. The elders at the orphanage say, every generation or so, Otho tries some mad scheme to try and foil the sale of his most talented orphans.”
She shrugged and led him by the hand, away from the desk. “What that means…I have no idea. What of these reports of murders in the streets and madmen fighting battles in the orchards around Wheatford town…?”
“Yes, those are even more confusing, I have any number of reports on some new orphan or merchant or mage in Belen’s town, those are wildly inconsistent. Next I have multiple reports of that person battling slavers… within sight of the town walls no less.”
“Slavers? In Wheatford? How distressing! I trust patrols in our outlying villages have been stepped up?” She muttered in shock.
“Yes, that was my first thought. We have refugees in transit… Though I see little need to worry. Those stories are widespread in public gossip now. The tales are united only in a uniform agreement that the slavers were soundly defeated, some were even captured.” He smiled with genuine pleasure there.
“In any case, my next flock of messages detail that very controversial, yet seemingly impossible to pin down and describe person. Particularly that entities’ gruesome crossbow murder in the midst of a public faire.” He read a line again, from another scroll.
“Here it is. ‘Shot with a naval crossbow, through the heart’, ‘carried away in a shroud’, it says. This agent is among my most reliable.” He muttered.
“Well that solves that. Poor creature, I heard rumors of that at my seamstress’, he was shot dead in the middle of spring festival. In front of his partner, no less. I hear they have children as well… such a pity. I was told the killer escaped somehow, he has yet to be found. A ghastly business.”
“I heard that from my tailor as well. Only Joy herself is better informed than the tailor’s guild. That is why I was startled when reliable agents in both Flintspire and Port Clement, provided descriptions of this same indescribable and forgettable madman. He brings the same chaos and tales of wonders in his wake as well.”
“Well in that case, surely not. There must be some trick afoot… Have you sent anyone out to investigate?”
Jaspreet could never resist intrigue, especially lately. Since their visit to the orphanage, she had been obsessed with another of the books from the Orphan’s League collection. Some hefty tome, called simply:
‘Kim, By Rudyard Kipling.’
Even now, it peeked from her pocket. Like ‘Jungle Book’ it had no erotic content whatsoever, even the delightful block prints were without any prurient motifs. Nonetheless, she was riveted, she must have read the thing entirely at least twice.
Since she started that book, she demanded constant tales of his ‘spies’.
“Who did you send, some master of deception and guile?” She asked with excitement, thrilling deep within her bones.
“Viktor Hebst, the apothecary and alchemist. He has a relative, apprenticed with the Wheatford Alchemists’ guild. Their journeyman’s trial is beginning soon, that is a fine excuse for a visit and a little snooping.”
“Oh.” She muttered sadly. “You really should read this book my love. I think it holds a clue to the secret of Belen’s sudden prosperity and your confused and incoherent informants.” Her book landed in his lap. Fluttering with page markers.
“I’ve marked some passages, this story deals with a young boy, ‘Kim’ an orphan, like Mowgli, in ‘Jungle Book’... Kim, the ‘little friend of all the world’, he takes a dissimilar, though very familiar path.”
“You have highlighted some passages about a ‘Great Game’ what means this? Is there an explanation of the rules?” She silenced him with a finger to his lips, and another, tapping the page.
#
Abed Mubarak, duke of Shiraz, twelfth of his line, prided himself on his agents. They sifted gossip and rumor from fact and sent it trickling across the roads and waves on a huge variety of wagons and boats.
Messages arrived daily from all parts of the twelve duchies and even abroad, across the raging sea, from time to time. His network of informants and correspondents stretched far and wide.
Yet here, on the pages of this book, were constant and casual mentions of ideas and things of which he had no prior knowledge. Some places and concepts were discussed and passed by with little regard for the reader, yet other things… those became clear.
Jaspreet draped herself over his shoulders, whispering softly in his ear.
“The Great Game is a game of spies and agents… trained from childhood to watch, learn and report… this must be it. You were on the right track, now we must increase our efforts.”
Mubarak rose and strode to his desk in bold strides. He grabbed a quill and a parchment sheet and began writing.
“Once this ink is dry, Sanders is out. You, my love, will be head of the orphanage… you have my full authority and resources at your disposal. Get me in the Great Game my love, I need men like this ‘Kimball O’Hara’, in the field a year ago at least.”
He turned and smacked his fist into his palm with furious excitement. “Not one unbelievable and impossible orphan treasure, but teams of individually exceptional, well trained operatives… If we could only learn more…”
“If Belen is training all his orphans… we need only buy a few at auction and set them to work here, training ours…” She mused, perching on the corner of his desk and crossing her legs so that one ankle dangled freely, with a soft, musical chime.
“Are you wearing… bells?” He asked, deeply amused by this development. “I kept hearing them, but I thought, certainly not…”
“Shush! It’s a new fashion, many young, single ladies have taken to wearing strings of chimes on their hips.” Her eyes sparkled with mirth at her man, whose head was enveloped in a sweetly scented cloud of smoke. “Like those silly long pipes you have taken to smoking.”
“This is a matter of convenience, it’s cooler after its long journey… and the smoke stays out of my eyes. This one lights itself if you puff three times, can you believe that? It came with a sample of the most delightful smelling herb. Professor Glinntz got it from the trade boat he buys my smut from.”
Abed kept smoking happily, right past that admission. Jaspreet’s eyes lit with delight as he slowly realized what he was saying.
“She has all the most exciting works… my copy of The Merchant’s Tale has nearly been read to pieces…” He slowly took the pipe from his mouth, staring at it suspiciously. “Gods… try this my love… I can’t feel my face anymore.”
“You wish me to smoke some suspiciously strong herb, even more enticingly, it was provided to you by your pornographer?” Her smile of devilish enjoyment made him flush a deep coppery color.
“Damn it! I enjoy pornographic novels… I am a grown man! I am not lurking in the woodshed looking at a stack of blurry woodcuts like some naughty apprentice.” He stomped up to her in a huff, and kissed her with his deliciously smoky smile.
Her eyes widened in surprise, when he passed a lungful of sweet, warm smoke to her lips, sending her world spinning madly.
“Gods, that is strong… and sexy. Do that again, Abed… you are far better than any silly old pipe!”
#