Ch: 140 Livin’ In The Sunlight
Duke Rummel’s flotilla of boats went by as the Bathers were heading out in the morning. They rang cheerful bells and waved, but they also bristled with hard eyed men and women in light armor.
An orphan courier arrived at dawn with a bundle of papers from the local temple to Dana the Healer, so Tawny had a number of messages to read over. She spent the day in the cart with the kids, wrangling her papers and looking annoyed with Gary for some reason.
Unfazed by her glares, he took to the road on his spindly wheeled stick horse. This time with a strange bronze, steel and brass hoop assembly mounted inside the frame.
He spent the morning speeding up, slowing down and generally wandering around in the formation, trying out his latest contraption, ‘getting a feel for it’.
At lunch, he was effusive and excited. “Tallum’s ringmotor design is a game changer. Not much initial torque, but the efficiency and utility are undeniable.” He bounced around in glee, chattering on. “My sandwich motors pack more power, but they try to tear themselves apart at speed and weigh a ton.”
Gary strutted about happily, even after a solid morning’s ride along the rolling lowlands beside the sea.
“My ass is still fully intact and my legs aren’t reduced to jelly, so this is an all around win!” The wide smile on his face got wider a moment later.
“I had Ivy put a limiting charm on the mana intake… I was worried you’d try something dumb. We rigged it so you couldn't saw yourself in half.” He eyed the spinning, enchanted ring gears mounted just below the saddle. “You know how you get…”
“I’ll still hae the forging of a goodly steel fender fer that gear, lad. I’d nae have anything sheared off nor trimmed, not by a mite!” Shai smiled despite her protests and claims of genital peril; she straddled his bike, taking a short, faltering spin.
“Yeah, it’s different, you gotta provide some initial ‘oomph’, then bleed the motor in, once you’re moving, it’s a mass thing.” He called, gradually increasing his volume as she rolled up the road. “At a brisk jog, things get interesting!”
Her whoop of excitement when she hit third gear and slipped into the sweet spot, made everyone smile.
“Tell ya what, let’s work up a physical control for that limiting charm, we’ll invent the throttle. Give a little tactile feedback…” Gary, Tallum and Ivy were checked out for the rest of lunch, while Becky and Shai took turns scooting around on his crazy toy.
“So a rotating handgrip… say, a user adjustable resistance spring…” They carried on talking about when and where things should click or give resistance.
Gary was wide open on almost every point with his ‘design team’, accepting good ideas and pointing out the rubbish evenhandedly, save on one point. Of course they had to rake him over the coals for it.
“I just don’t see the space for it in the design specs…” Ivy grumbled stubbornly.
“Unbalances the steering point, can’t adjust for that properly without adding a counterweight, right where you don’t want any extra mass.” Tallum agreed. “I can’t even imagine how to make such a thing…” The big smith complained.
“I mean, a digitally controlled wireless signaling device sounds complicated… and when you pull the thumb lever it goes ‘Shing Shing’? Sounds too complicated for me.”
His giant ‘friend’ continued to demand further explanation of the bicycle bell concept, even while he was busy sketching throttle body designs. Everyone should appreciate a fine spring morning in the sunshine in their own way.
“You two suck… I’m not playing with you anymore.” He huffed and stomped away to play tea party with the little ones, hitching his trousers up so high as he walked bowlegged away, that they nearly split him in half.
“I never really understand his humor… it’s entertaining to watch though, like a foreign play...” Ivy stopped there, pausing as though she had suddenly smelled something new and not entirely pleasant.
“I’ve never seen a ‘foreign play… nor heard of one… Where did that idea come from?” She asked her big lover.
“I was kinda thinking the same thing…” He rumbled softly. “We’ll ask Amicus and Otho when we get home. Liam too, remember his crazy howling song?”
“Smart boy!” She growled. “You win the prize tonight.”
“I’ll have to get Gary to make you a round butt cushion all your own.” He growled right back, surprising himself and her, with his passion and eagerness.
“Very smart boy…”
#
They had to slow their whistling, musical flight for the traffic around and in Port Ellis. The steady walking pace needed to traverse the market and dock wards felt intensely uncomfortable after so many days in the wilds and on the open roads.
The pool of clean air accompanying the band invariably sent chocolate seeking people sniffing after them. Gary tucked his bike away before too many curious eyes could start asking too many nosy questions.
Khan broke off for the adventure compound to check in and report, as well as check the notice board for potential hazards or jobs. He nodded as he rejoined them on Annie, catching up as they were leaving the dock ward, heading for where the River Road joined the Coast Road.
“Road looks clear, reports of ‘something’ in the joining of the waters… we should all…”
“Kai! We’re visiting Kai!” Wilford bounced and spun, hopping in the cart bed with joy.
“Calm down kiddo, we’ll visit, but we gotta get home, even with my tricks, it’s gonna be close. We already missed the feast of Water.” Gary complained. “The look on Khan’s face says the duke had another, ‘come home now’ message waiting in Port Fallon too.”
The veteran lancer shrugged helplessly. “The Adventuring life, you will either have your thumb up for weeks, watching your coins dwindle away; or get pulled in three different directions at once for jobs that are all too important to delay…”
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“Your Highway names are kinda weird.” Gary called as he pedaled along with the group. We’ve ridden down a few completely distinct ‘River Roads’, how do travelers and merchants navigate?” He wondered idly.
“You just have to know which River Road you are on, this is the Belen River road, a few days ago we were on the Rummel River road. It makes perfect sense.” Luna scolded. “What, should we use some obscure mixture of names and numbers that shift when you leave one domain and enter another?”
Her smirk was infuriatingly logical. “Otherwise lords would change the names of roads and confuse trade constantly.”
“The geography of this place is still a mystery. I gotta find a map.” He grumbled for the hundredth time.
“Maps… piffle.” Khan grumbled right back. “You’ve seen two duchies kids, that’s more travel than any but a master merchant or a sailor could expect to do.”
“Hold that thought Khan… roll it around in your head some.” The madman said suddenly. “You’re a military man… Why would you not want to have a map of your zone of operations? Does that make any sense?” He smiled expectantly as the older man began mulling that over. He pedaled over to Dannyl and slipped the young warrior his banshee teleblaster on the sly.
“Start noodling bro, just lay down some background, thinking music please.” The madman whispered, as he struggled to steer, speak and pedal, while passing the instrument up to his pony mounted comrade.
Khan’s glorious ‘stache twitched in irritation a few times, then stopped cold. “Why is that…?”
“Khan has some mental grist to mill down… let’s leave him be for a bit.” Gary said with a wink, while Dannyl drifted around in spanish guitar phrases on the banshee.
The teleblaster’s enchantment was perfect for gnawing on exposed compulsion and restraint spells. The only trick was exposing those deeply burrowed, barbed hooks of magical distraction and compulsion.
“He’s not gonna wind up stoopies for hours like Dannyl and Liam… I’ve gotten better at this and Dannyl is more gentle than I am, in any case. He has such expressive fingers…” He muttered as they swayed to the mellow strains of ‘Guantanemera’.
“Gods damn your madness, boy…” Khan grumbled as they dismounted to make camp on Kai’s island. “My skull feels like it’s been pounded with a mallet… and I’m furious. Knowing that I am just one of an endless parade of fools who have been manipulated, is cold comfort.”
“Now you know how I feel, when I ask for a map and you guys look at me like I’m crazy. The college librarian thought I was making jokes at her expense. She almost banned me from her six whole shelves of actual reference books.” He had a sour look on his face, remembering the ‘college library’ and its pathetic collection of poorly annotated and mostly apocryphal books.
“The shitty ‘field guide to Wheatford’ I found in Z’s place is better researched than anything in the library.”
Luna was rolling her eye so hard at the complaining pair, Tawny began to worry the warrior would strain something and blind herself.
“Journeyman Luna, you will probably experience this mental stress yourself… before too much longer. I struggle greatly with his new ideas and strange thoughts as well, perhaps more open minds in these times would better serve us all…” Her sweet, golden voice took most of the sting out of her mild rebuke, until the uncomfortable idea settled in.
The one eyed warrior sat down on a stump in a daze, watching the madman, his woman and children summon an entire gods damned inn and craft hall from nowhere… Complete with public and private hotspring baths, splendid, verdant gardens and an orchard of trees and bushes that seemed to always be in fruit and flower.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
With nothing more than a few musical instruments and a bit of effort, a mind shattering wonder appeared before her eye.
Khan recognised her poleaxed and confused expression, having felt it on his own face just a little while before.
“Ohh ho, now you get to feel a legion of tiny, hobnailed boots run through your tender mind.” He whispered, as he half carried her inside, for a bit of thinking and a nap.
#
“Someone is going to suffer for this…” Luna said with the kind of pleasant, conversational tone that made her words less a threat, than a dearly held promise.
“Yeah, that’s kinda the end goal.” Gary said happily, when she staggered in for dinner looking haggard and upset.
“At least you have the excuse of youth… It is a very bitter and caustic medicine to take at my age.” Axio smiled and sprawled all over the couch, while his mortal friends consumed organic matter in their odd way.
“Now that Plumeria and the other dryads are on the case, the truth will eventually come out. Nothing on this world can be hidden from them, once they have an inkling of what to look for.”
“Forgive me as I take what actions I may, we mortals are loath to await the plans of those for whom centuries are meaningless. I am impatient for a little bloodshed.” She growled at the cheerful grave spirit.
The moment dinner finished and the tables were cleared, the three little ones vanished into the garden to climb all over Kai and listen to her slow, watery stories about life under the surface.
#
“Captain Mustafa assures me that the river is navigable all the way to Wheatford, your grace.”
Guard captain Limerick was as steady and reliable as one could hope for in a commander of the ducal bodyguard, despite his youth.
“He suggests we moor for the night at some island he knows, rather than chance the dubious comforts of Port Fallon. I have visited the town before, I concur with his plan.”
“Won’t old baron Eglund get cranky if I pass so close and don’t visit?” He mumbled in annoyance.
Jaspreet sang sweetly from the hammock chair in his quarters on the ducal yacht. “My dear, Eglund is in mourning for the loss of poor Brennan, remember? So brave of him to sacrifice himself for those children…”
“Yes, my love… you never had the pleasure of meeting Brennan Fallon… I’m certain that the gods will provide him the reward he has so fully earned… with his valor.”
Duke Mubarak sighed and joined Jaspreet in the hammock. “You and the captain may decide, sail on as you see fit, moor as you will. The sooner we are in Wheatford, the sooner I can begin picking at this thorny bramble. All else is trivial.”
#
An early camp and an early dinner was just the thing to set them up for a run up the River Road and home. Seahorse bobbed merrily on her pier, just in case he and Shai decided to do some evening ‘fishing’. They were totally going ‘fishing’...
Gary leaned on the steering bench with Shai, enjoying the view, as they sailed out into the still, sunny waters.
The kids were working on intermediate jazz vocals with Cab, down in the front room, the young couple had at least an hour or two alone...
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Water Lotus moored with hardly a bump and Limerick leapt to the pier with his two escorts to secure the area.
A dark skinned young girl met them at the foot of the pier, looking over the three well dressed warriors and their highly ornate and rather large yacht. She shook her head in a manner that suggested amusement and some trepidation. She smiled warily, until a massive horse reached her head out from a stable window and nuzzled her shoulder.
“How can we aid you this evening? This is a simple home and a private pier, my lords. We are perhaps… ill equipped to accommodate august personages.” Her voice rang out clear and calm in the gathering night.
“We seek to negotiate moorage and perhaps some supplies from the proprietors of this inn… or whatever it is.” Limerick sketched a slight bow, too much by far, for a lord’s captain to give a common hostler or stablegirl, but he was ever a generous soul.
The girl got a strange look in her eye as she dipped a passable courtesy in return, barely passable.
“Head to the front door, someone will meet you there. Be sure to change into slippers!” She sang sweetly, all signs of nervousness suddenly gone from her face.
She vanished, rather than following them to the sturdy door, under cheery paper lanterns.
A peephole opened revealing the face of a beautiful mature woman, who seemed no bigger than a child. She admitted them with a graceful smile, revealing herself to be in fact, miniscule. The largest single thing about the tiny woman was the garland of magnolia blossoms in her hair.
“Have you any rooms, publican?” He asked the figure in a green coat and cowl who bustled up to meet them at the door which the tiny woman was closing behind them.
“Oh dear, I’m not the proprietor, I just know how he gets if people wear shoes in his house.” Axio chirped happily as he helped the newcomers into some lovely rolly polly bug slippers.
Something seemed off about the little fellow and the small woman, whose gaze Limerick still felt, as he conversed with this strange little man. It was disconcerting, the warmth and noise embraced him and he felt as though he’d had a bit of wine already.
That should have alarmed him, tales of odd creatures had been abundant in the market before they left Port Shiraz, sightings of cat, beaver and otter people, even word of a hidden monster in this very wetland.
Nonsense of course, beastfolk never ventured so far from the fringe. Some oldtimers trotted out their old fairy stories; tales of wondrous things that vanish with the dawn or musical wildlife singing songs in praise of the queens of the woodland.
Common banditry or monsters were more likely, but Limerick spotted a few Adventure badges in the common room. That was reassuring, as were the youngsters playing and singing in the corner.
The kids were sitting around the pianoforte, Tawny and Dannyl led them through a lovely three part harmony under spiritual guidance.
We three, we're not a crowd,
We're not even company.
My echo, my shadow, and me…
Amy sang lead, with Rio and Wilford chiming in on their lines and backing her on the chorus.
What good is the moonlight,
The silvery moonlight that shines above?
I walk with my shadow.
I talk with my echo.
But where is the one I love?
They dropped into a classic break, cuing Wilford up for a smooth and mellow toast, in his serious, grown man voice, while his brother and sister crooned idle doo-wop behind his lines.
We three, we'll wait for you…
Even till eternity…
My echo, my shadow, and me…
The tiny boy crooned his spoken word lines with absolute conviction, really selling the melancholy and sweet number. Even with simplified lyrics, it was a solid performance, children or not.
“What is this place?” He asked in even greater confusion when the man in the blue suit, leading the band, evaporated with a smile. “It was that fried carp at lunch, I’m hallucinating from food poisoning!”
The childlike woman in robes of gleaming white, with magnolia blossoms in her hair, took him by the hand and led him and his dewy eyed comrades to a table.
“No friend, you are quite well. You have simply stumbled into a small slice of the old realms of the fae… a taste of days gone by.” She smiled with ages untold shining behind her tiny brown eyes.
“In the morning, back on the road, you may find this was all simply a pleasant dream...”
“Solange… Please don’t ‘mystical, mysterious fae’ the mortals in Gary’s house, He says he’s here to dispel mysteries, not create them.” Axio muttered softly. “Casting glamors on unsuspecting mortals is against house rules.”
At the small, green cowled man’s words, the room came into sharper focus, leading poor Limerick to the inescapable conclusion that neither of the people he was talking to were human, or properly mortal.
“Yes, the glamor should be fading now.” The tiny woman muttered softly. “You are safe, friend human. Your hostess is as human and mortal as you are, she would murder me if you came to harm under her roof. I’ve no desire to face her shovel, so you are safe indeed.”
While he was still struggling with that, a fit, muscular young man with spiky black hair and impeccable manners swooped in on them. He was very gently and hospitably distracted and turned about, by the forcefully gracious young host.
“My apologies, Solange means no harm. Rest, relax Your host and hostess are currently away… when they return they will be delighted to meet you.”
The man kept shooting frustrated glances at the tiny woman and her green hooded friend. They were being gently dressed down by a very small blonde woman.
It took a few minutes for his head to clear and a few more to digest what he had stumbled into, worse, what he had sailed his lord into.
“My employer had planned to moor here for the night, we should be on our way.” He barely had the words out before the man, Liam began shaking his head in flat denial.
“Ye have a debt to you and it must be repaid, your hosts would be very upset if they felt you had been turned away.” He continued casting dubious eyes at the tiny ‘woman’ in white, who seemed to be something else entirely.
“Please, I will see to it that they are reprimanded severely…”
That girl did seem to have them on the back foot somehow. She pointed and poked her finger at them expressively, while broadcasting righteous fury…
#
“They came on that big, fancy boat?” She asked Axio and Solange, while pretending to scold them. “We can’t just brainbust people when they come to the door, it’s not polite. Even if they are some rich guy’s flunkies.”
She waved her fingers a few more times, menacing them with undefined threats.
“If I know Shai, she’s gonna invite them to stay the night… this is gonna suck.” She sighed, while keeping up the furious pantomime.
“At least our other two guests know how to have fun…” She smiled over at the low stage, where a handsome couple were seated by the fire, enjoying Liam’s tea and listening raptly to the kids, lost in the performance.
#
Jaspreet peered out the window, at the strange little island and its marvelous inn.
“We simply must go ashore! Up, up Abed! You will be taking me dancing, unless my ears mislead me!” She sang while changing into simple, commoner’s clothing.
“I feel so naughty!” Jaspreet nearly beamed with pleasure at the thought. The yacht had barely tied off before they slipped ashore. Abed simply scowled at the poor sailor at the gangway and they slipped down in common clothes for a peek inside the lively inn on the island.
Wisely, they circled to the road side door, since poor Limerick and his two escorts were negotiating the door at the dock. The pair strolled through the splendid gardens to the front door and were admitted promptly, by a beautiful young woman with her hair plaited and beaded to her scalp and eyes that nearly vanished behind her delighted smile.
“I am Becky, please come in, your host and hostess are currently distracted by some trifle. Allow me to welcome you to Shai’s inn, please, try these slippers… they are a household tradition.” The smiling and gracious young girl had them seated by the fire with tea and cakes within moments.
“I will see what the kitchen has for us tonight, master and mistress…” She paused, just long enough to make it a request, rather than a demand.
Jaspreet took control, smiling just as brightly. “Ahhm Delphine, This here be Amos, we’re farmers here-bouts…” She spouted in a terrible, downmarket, lowland peasant accent.
The smile never left the girl’s face, seeming to grow even brighter when they were evasive and clearly lying about their identities.
“We are so pleased to have you with us this evening, I will send your hosts over to greet you as soon as they return.” She glanced over to where a lovely commoner girl was berating two small children over some minor mischance.
“The proprietor seems… distasteful… perhaps we should return to the boat, Delphine.” Abed said with a grimace.
“Ohh no! I never get you out of the palace, but that you find some way to slip away. Not this time! You are going to entertain me all night.”
She planted a chaste kiss on his cheek and turned back to the performing children, when the tiny girl began to sing the most unusual song in the most extraordinary voice.
A beautiful, golden blonde woman in a veil, barely more than a girl, sat at the pianoforte, playing a very complex piece for the children. An absolutely darling ginger boy performed masterfully a very strange guitar of some sort, accompanied by two tiny boys on children’s instruments.
It was all very charming, until one listened to the music with a critical ear. The teenage musicians were very skilled, surprisingly so…
Down on the floor at their feet, one tiny boy held a simple set of drums, while another gripped a stringed instrument similar to the red haired boy’s. Together they swayed and played with extraordinary skill, at an age when most little boys would be having trouble keeping their clothes on.
The tiny girl child’s voice was a marvel, she shattered the air on crystalline high notes and warmed the room with her soft melodies in turns. She dominated the space without being overbearing, filling the room with music and light.
All the conversations and activities around the common room seemed to melt into her performance, discord and a harmony becoming part of and counterpoint to, her song.
When somebody thinks you're wonderful,
Tells you with a smile so sweet,
What are little stones your steppin' on?
Just a meadow 'neath your feet.
And how you meet the morning,
You gaily swing along.
At night you may be weary,
But your heart still sings a song…
The sweet song melted the lord and soon to be lady of the duchy of Shiraz into a warm fuzzy pile. In the corner, the dark, slender girl rubbed her hands together in evil glee, waiting for another kind of fireworks show…
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