Ch: 241 You Know It Don’t Come Easy
Four humans, one giant horse and an albino blonde girl who was too pretty and brightly shiny to be mistaken for an entirely natural being, watched as the house evaporated away, right around fifth bell. The Adventure compound of Port Sunderland seemed a bit more drab and dismal without the garden inn and steaming baths.
“I’m going to miss that bath…” Luna sighed softly. “Let’s ride, love. We’ve miles to go.”
Rolf, Angie and Ester watched the duo ride off on their massive friend, with Luna perched on Khan’s lap, in that unusual saddle. “He gave me the name of his saddlemaker in Herndon Town…” Rolf whispered to his girlfriend, eliciting a silly, whinnying laugh from Ester, when Angie turned bright red.
“Oh sweet spirits and gods… I wish you two would smash…” The equine spirit in human form whined, when the young couple started being bashful again on their walk to the palace. “You don’t even have to let me watch… unless?”
“Ester…” Angie muttered, with a dire warning in her voice.
“Oh, come on… just a little, for me? I miss running properly!” She pleaded. “That is to say nothing of the sweet bond we three shall share, once you two get to porking.”
“Ester!” Rolf snapped in shock. “This is a public street! Such talk is unwarranted!”
“Boy… such talk is always fit for the streets. Where do you think all these delightful urchins come from?” Her white blonde eyebrows danced merrily as she giggled and snorted. “Or have they changed how it’s done, since last I witnessed a mortal coupling?”
“Ester… a knight of the realm does not ‘get to porking’... on a public thoroughfare.” Rolf whispered tersely in the unicorn’s ear.
“Come on, just a little fucky wucky… just the tip…?”
“Now you’re just being obnoxious.” Angie scolded the creature.
“He’s a mortal man… it’s a question of when, not if. All his delaying is what’s obnoxious.” She whispered back.
“I get a say in this too, missy.” She answered tartly.
“Oh hush… you want that lucious morsel so bad it hurts, which is nothing compared to how badly he wants you…” She shifted uncomfortably. “Because I’m part of him and you, I feel it too. The desperate, awful ache of it…”
“Boys can be so silly…” The young warrior maiden sighed to her unicorn.
#
The boy had diligently practiced with his Contract spear every morning and evening of their swift passage across the sea… and while they were in town. Working his way through Luna’s spear dance under Shai and Liam’s instruction helped, but he still felt out of sorts and imbalanced, something was still screwed up inside him. He had a pretty good idea what it was, but few good options at the moment.
That damn snake club and thorned gauntlet were still battling it out in an unwinnable conflict; locked together and shoved into a pocket dimension.
Ivy had filched an experimental dimensional pocket ring from his forgotten odds and ends and tucked the cursed things away, between the butcheeks of reality.
Since he’d made the thing, a lot had changed in his essence; after a rankup and a number of new Contracts, the ring was no longer accessible to him. It had attached itself to Ivy in some subtle way, allowing only her to access its tiny hidden dimension.
Tallum wore the ring on a chain around his neck, securing the twinned cursed artifacts away neatly… Save that they were both still carrying parts of his own essence in them, and in conflict with each other, using him as a proxy.
Spiritual feuds between cursed objects can jack up a person’s insides, even from outside whatever current ‘reality’ the victim might be in. That problem wasn’t going away, until he had time to get in the shop and put those things to rest, once and for all.
He stumbled on deck, bleary eyed and worn, blinking into bright sunshine and a fresh, warm breeze coming up from behind, pushing them onward. Tall and ominous clouds were building ahead on the horizon, it felt like another storm rolling in from the ocean.
“We gonna get tossed around again? Looks like another bad one…” He asked Dannyl, who had the helm watch.
“Shai thinks we’ll get to Port Sill before it does… if we keep running in front of the wind.” The helm was steady under his hands, with Liam in the rigging, relaxed, alert and confident, guiding their rapid flight across the waters.
“We hardly ever get storms like this, never at this time of year…”
#
At the mouth of the Shallow Sea, where the land fell away into the raging ocean beyond, two small towns stood. They clung to the rocks on either side of the natural passage into the tempest tossed waters beyond. Across the mile wide straits, the twin lighthouses of Ports Watch and Sill shone in the night, warning of the treacherous waters between them.
Thunder cracked and rolled over the waves, as the first real gusts of the storm hit his sturdy basalt keep. Twelve generations of Flizitz’ had kept watch here, He was doomed to be the last, but trusted duchess Grace to find him a worthy successor. Too many years and too much tragedy had taken their toll on the aging warrior lord.
Lord Flizitz of Port Sill sat back in his office and read the scroll with a smile of obvious pleasure on his face. “I will have to contact Journeyman Linda, of the second platoon… She has a letter from an old friend.”
“Second is not expected back for a week, my lord. Shall I dispatch a runner?” Lord Flizitz’ chancellor, Herman Sampson frowned with distaste when his lord nodded absently, while rereading his own letter.
“Make it so… A great burden has been lifted from us both… she and I.” He almost purred with satisfaction as he set his scroll down. “I’ve decided to recall the second, they have been in the field long enough, this is important enough to warrant a furlough for the team.”
The old man seemed in high spirits, as he read. “Remember young Cameron, the lad afflicted by that awful squid monster… was it three years ago…?”
‘The daft old fool does maunder on!’ Sampson thought fiercely to himself, shaking his own brainstem with his internal shout of impotent rage.
“Yes, almost four years now… in any case, it seems a cure for his affliction has been found! Happy news! Duchess Sheng is ecstatic and is sending a troop to relieve the second, some new hotshots from Belen’s stable. They are sailing from Port Sunderland, so we can expect them once the storm clears. A celebration indeed!” The geezer chortled happily.
“I was not aware that a messenger had arrived… my lord.” Sampson said carefully.
“Yes, this came in yesterday with my… literature.” The jolly old coot answered with a grin.
“Oh? I was not informed of your pornograper’s arrival… My lord…”
“My ‘pornographer’ may come and go as she pleases from this house and my domain, Sampson.” Flizitz snapped, much of his jollity slipping away. “I had begun to wonder why you were so interested in my personal and private correspondence and reading preferences of late…” The old man leaned forward slightly in his chair. “It’s poetry, by the way. Thank you very much for asking, a collection of romantic sonnets.”
“My lord…” Sampson stammered, flushing red.
“I’m well aware that you have been engaging in a bit of graft and have been secretly shifting the money to your cousin up north…” He hemmed and hawed a little, trying to remember the name.
“The former mayor of that flyspeck, former fishing village on the northeast coast… It all came out at his trial, I already knew all that. My ‘pornographer’ delivered more than cheeky poems and personal letters however. It seems that your cousin was involved in some very unsavory things.”
There was a soft rustle as Bernard, the lord’s personal lifeguard stepped out of the shadows. “You are under arrest Sampson. Please don’t make this unpleasant.”
Lord Flizitz spoke over his former chancellor’s protestations of his innocence, ignoring the man’s words. “I wouldn’t have minded a bit of honest graft… an able administrator is so difficult to find.” The old lord shook his head in deep disappointment.
“He had ties to illegal indenture prostitution… Did you know that? He sold at least three children off directly, from his own home… Children missing, stolen from outlying farms in my domain.”
“Third platoon is already raiding your home, Sampson.” Bernard’s voice was as cold and hard as the stones his ancestors had built the town and castle from.
“Lock him in the secure storeroom… If you would, Bernard. This has been very trying, despite the good news about Cameron!” The old man chuckled darkly. “If a cure has been found, perhaps we can finally get rid of whatever has been lurking in lake Caldera… it hasn’t been worth the risk since Cameron.”
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Bernard hauled the blubbering functionary away by his collar, the man’s legs seemed to have failed him, along with his bladder. “Dalia, please summon lady Constanza, I feel a flare up coming on.” He wheezed and coughed for a moment, before he could continue. “And send someone with a mop… Sampson has embarrassed himself a little…”
The old lord sat back, mused thoughtfully to the empty room and eyed the slightly moist rug. “Was looking a little threadbare anyway.”
#
A portly, sturdy woman in early middle age stood up from the dank corner of the last archive room’s last dusty shelf of documents and dusted her hands off with a happy sigh of absolute contentment. “Your records were a mess…”
“Kelli… did you reorganize my archives?” Otho asked gently.
“I… I had to…” She whispered, as her cheeks burned bright red. “I couldn’t sleep last night, knowing what was down here.”
“I understand, my dear… No, that was a lie, I have no clue how you did all this, nor how you managed to not actually perish of fatal tedium.” The old priest licked his lips and smiled. “Even a little harmless social lie cannot escape you…”
“Ellie says lying is a uniquely mortal vice. I don’t really understand that, but it sounds clever…” The simple and pleasant smile of joy on her face warmed Otho from the toes up, as he confronted her in the depths below his orphanage.
“My dear, we are going to get along famously.”
#
Rain and strong swirling gusts from the storm took the wind from Moonrise’s sail, blowing in unpredictable ways and from strange angles, so the canvas came down and Gary had to struggle to keep his Mana from dropping through the floor. Whatever was wrong, it was sapping his usually explosive Mana regeneration, reducing it to a strong stream, rather than a torrential flood.
He stuffed himself on the steersman’s bench, edged in beside Shai as they battered their way through the highest waves they’d yet seen on the Shallow Sea, nearly two foot swells!
The little boat rose and fell with a sense of rock solid and sturdy permanence, she was more than a match for these waves. It was the wind that taxed their seamanship and Gary’s reserves, pushing, pulling and dragging at the boat in turns. When they cut into a sheltered cove at the mouth of a small river, he sagged against Shai, even as the anchor dropped.
Fat droplets began to stipple the cove, as the storm crawled over the mountains from the west and swirled down the slopes, approaching with what seemed like glacial slowness. Gary and Shai were still rowing for shore with the little family watching from the rail, when the first sheet of lightning shook their side of the coastal range.
Ten long, wet minutes and a heartfelt acapella performance of ‘Singin In The Rain’ later, Liam and Ivy ran the gangway out, as Dannyl and Tallum made fast to the pier now jutting into their storm tossed cove. Tawny dashed into the house with the kids, in a vain hope of staying dry, but it was bucketing down. They were already soaked by the frigid rain and chilly mist when they piled into the foyer.
The boys finished securing Moonrise and followed, completely drenched and shivering, despite the warmth once they got inside. “Off tae the baths wi thee…” Shai ordered firmly, clad in a flannel robe and a towel wrapped around her head. She and Gary were in the kitchen, getting a stew and some biscuits on for an early dinner. Port Sill would have to wait for the weather to change.
The kids, Becky and Shai were having storytime around the fire, with Otho curled up at their feet; while the rest of his little family was bustling about in the kitchen or chatting quietly. No one paid any mind, when he slipped out into the garden with a big bucket, then down into the workshop.
#
Damsen gave up trying to contact the College of Bards… The guild seemed to no longer exist. Her inquiries had led to a dead end, with some group of traveling minstrels calling themselves ‘The College of Fancies’ that had passed through town briefly and vanished. Inquiries about the target, this Trelawny Belen, bore more fruit.
“Lady Belen’s party sailed out before dawn… I’m sure I don’t know her destination.” The clerk at the customs desk answered tartly. Asking questions without even a token bribe was bad form, but it was against bureaucratic guild rules to refuse an answer, without actual cause.
The red clad woman was still flat broke, busking had been supremely unproductive… and now her prey had slipped away, again. With no further clues, she strode off without another word and began searching for passage back across the sea, to discharge the rest of her grim objectives.
The flustered clerk watched in mortified embarrassment as the red robed and veiled person left. “Not even an iron bit… Barbarian!” He adjusted his jeweled robes of office and sighed. The price of seed pearls and spun gold was ruinous, on a government salary. “I’ll get a few coins from the information brokers at least…” He muttered, as he noted down her name, a description of her distinctive, unfamiliar robes and the nature of her questions. ‘Lady Damsen, master of the College of Bards, seeking lady Trelawny Belen, for an unknown cause and purpose.’ That might fetch a bit of jingle from the Guild of Whispers, the Tailors’ Guild and the cult of Joy.
Damsen stomped off in a raging fury. She hid her precious harp away and slipped out of town to find a place to wait for dawn. Storm winds and earth shaking thunder drove the destitute entity into the dark, leafy bower of a massive willow tree for shelter from the storm.
#
Under a snug, warm roof with sturdy walls all around, a group of young people shared a stormy afternoon by the shore.
“Whatever he wants to get done in Port Sill aside, we can be back across to Port Clement in three days. Once the banking is done, we should be back in Wheatford before the feast of Light…” Tawny slid a little closer to Liam, as a powerful blast of thunder shook the world. “Where is Gary anyway?”
“Workshop.” Tallum answered, without even thinking for a moment. “How did I know that?” The big man wondered quietly. “It’s almost like I can feel where he is in the house… that’s weird.”
“Yeah, that’s happening.” Becky mumbled awkwardly. “Anyway, somebody go check on him…”
Liam got up with a long stretch and headed for the workshop door. “I’ll take a look.” The young warrior vanished downstairs, only to return a few minutes later with a perplexed look on his face. “Ok, that’s just weird, I’m going to need Shai and Becky on this one.” With their curiosity piqued, they all trooped downstairs, leaving Otho with the sleeping kids on the couch.
In the workshop, only a few lights gleamed and those paltry lanterns shone a watery blue color. Gary stood on a low scaffold, with the mouth of that accursed apothecaries’ jar just above waist level. The thick glass vessel gave off a pale pink glow, illuminating the area immediately around. The jar was half filled with a thick, crystal clear, rosy pink goo, shot through with silvery threads of branching, rootlike structures that pulsed with a light of their own.
“Are you… growing tree snot?” Becky asked in a fine mix of curiosity, interest and disgust.
“Yup.” Gary answered, from inside a hastily fashioned suit of ‘armor’ composed of sheet steel scraps, odds and ends, and a few random armor pieces.
Each scrap, plate and oddment was connected by a bit of brazed on flexible metal wire or chain, connecting his weird garment together in some weird way. A length of wrought iron chain dragged behind, where it was welded on at his ankle, keeping in constant contact with the ground, even on the scaffold.
“Stay back behind the salt line on the floor gang… Don’t want Albert contaminated with stray magic.”
“What are you doing, brother?” Liam asked calmly.
“Becky just told you, I’m propagating my slime mold…” He dropped a black metal object inside and smiled with pleasure as it dissolved into a murky cloud and vanished, before hitting the bottom of the tank.
“Hey, Tallum, Ivy, gimme those cursed doodads… it's time to start them on their journey to oblivion.” Both of them looked at Shai, then Liam, who both nodded, before the big man fished out the ring and soberly passed it to the tiny mage girl. She paused before putting it on and locked eyes with the madman, through the eyeslits of his silly coal bucket helmet.
She reached… somewhere that wasn’t and pulled a sturdy bag of undyed canvas out of nowhere at all. The trash armored loon took the satchel from her and soon held his odd, conjoined artifacts in one gauntleted hand.
With a grunt of satisfaction he dropped the thing into the goop and watched it sink to the bottom. The hefty cut glass stopper sat on a scaffold of its own, slid back from the opening on waxed runners, to make it easier to slide into place.
The lid slipped into its socket with a satisfying hiss, while he once more began sealing the lid with one of his binding spells of silk, wire rope and carved bone talismans.
“Will ye curse the lid again lad?” Shai asked quietly while he paused to strip off his junksuit.
“Oh, you bet your sweet hiney I will.” Gary murmured as he started carving the last few sigils and runes in the clay tablet seal. “Only a living mortal will be able to open this jar. No demon, construct, spirit or fae can even see or touch the bottle now.” He muttered with satisfaction.
“Because it's inside my home, I think even the gods inside me will have trouble perceiving it.” He scratched through his salt circle to affirmatively end the simple ritual and started sweeping it up with a conjured broom.
“Lad, ye did bottle that club before, ‘tis a temporary solution, at best.” Shai whispered in his ear. “We kinnae risk that these things be loosed again.”
His answer was to smile and hand her a slip of paper with his familiar printed text on it.
Forest Glowooze, slime mold, saprotroph, detritivore, arcanotroph, fungus. Inedible, mildly toxic, reagent, mildly magical. Bioluminescence, magisynthesis, photosynthesis.
“My ‘tree snot’ is a magical fungus that can consume magical contaminants, as well as leaf litter, waste and carrion. It’s going to slowly, but surely consume those two and every scrap of magical essence inside them… Then I can scrap ‘em. At worst, the slime will isolate them from me completely, while I think about a faster solution.” He yawned and stretched languidly, with a slow pleased smile.
“Either way I get some rest…”
#
Under the willow’s canopy, the wind, rain and thunder seemed more distant, less immediate… soothing. Damsen sat down against the massive boll of the tree and tried to remember what it felt like to really rest… or eat, or breathe… Those thoughts hadn’t troubled her in the long, uncounted years of her bondage, yet lately, over the last few nights, they had returned.
Lost in thought, Damsen took a moment to realize that a profusion of tiny glowing insects were softly lighting the chamber, with their several glows and gleams.
“Well, hello, whatever you are…” A soft voice whispered from all around. “I haven’t seen so many new things in ages… and here is another!”
“Show yourself…” She called out calmly, as her harp emerged from the folds of her garments. “I am no babe in the woods to be frightened by the tricks of a forest spirit.” She rang a slow crescendo of soft notes and began a swaying melody designed to draw and entice.
“Sweet child, you are all babes to us… though you smell of older times than these current mortals…” She whispered, seeming closer now. “You would be ancient by mortal reckoning…” A small, slender, dark haired, brown eyed… nude woman slipped out from behind the tree’s trunk on bare, silent feet. “Where did you learn that song, child?”
“This is an original piece I’m working on, Spirit. Why do you intrude on me?” Damsen snapped. “I owe you no explanations.” Her harp continued, as she brought her gifts up around the strange, naked spirit woman. Entranced by the music and wrapped up in her spells, The being began to sway and dance under the boughs. She crooned a nonsense verse as she spun and stepped in time.
Oye cómo va,
Mi ritmo…
Bueno pa' gozar,
Mulata!
Damsen tugged on the magical strands around the entity, to bind it to her will. Her spells slipped off and dissolved away, countered so completely that she lost the thread of music and drew sour grimace from the dancing spirit.
“A binding enchantment?” The being sighed, in apparent disappointment.
You have a long way to go,
Before I will dance to your tune.
Save by my own will and want,
Sweet mortal something.
She sang softly, as her dance around the tree shelter continued; drawing Damsen back into the song before the musician understood what was happening.
Oye cómo va,
Mi ritmo…
Bueno pa' gozar,
Mulata!
Hey, how’s it going,
My rhythm…
It’s good for having fun,
Sexy lady!
“A friend of mine sings this song frequently… he has the most extraordinary dreams.” She whispered, as she spun past the confused and now deeply nervous figure in red. “He says it was written by Tito Puente… are you Tito Puente, or Santana?” She continued to whirl on her silent, bare feet, not even stirring the fallen leaves.
“You are only an illusion, a shadow… spirit, begone.” Damsen snapped in frustration, stilling her harp.
“Am I? Oh dear, this is getting awkward…” She crooned, still dancing, as crickets, nightjars and owls kept up the song all around. The high piping voices of small treefrogs and the deep bass of toads filled out the music, keeping her party going into the evening. “I’ll go first then… you may call me Willow, the willow grove, dryad of this tree.”
She paused expectantly for a few measures; when nothing was forthcoming she huffed at the robed figure. “This is the part where you tell me your name… that is how the game is played.”
“You may call me Damsen, master of the College of Bards.” She answered and then wondered why she had.
“You have magic hidden in this music!” She snarled, eyeing the ‘dryad’ with suspicion.
“No, sweetie… I am this tree, you are inside my domain and to a limited extent, under my power and enjoying my hospitality.” She sang cheerfully, still dancing to her wildland music.
“Any compulsion effect you feel is an echo of your own spells… poetic I think.” She smiled in a way that made Damsen wonder just exactly what she had stumbled into… “Don’t go around trying to ensorcel chance met beings, young lady. It’s a risky proposition at best.”
“Again I ask why you trouble me, spirit?” She demanded, striking her strings in agitation.
“You entered my domain uninvited, of your own free will… Naturally, I’m curious about such an odd being in my realm. You have a mortal human soul inside you, but no human body to wrap it in…” She circled closer, spinning in time with the swaying music. “Not undead, a life held in abeyance… restrained, suspended animation?” She mused thoughtfully as she danced.
“You know nothing of me, spirit!” She barked angrily.
“That’s true, but I do know someone who would love to meet you… He will be intrigued!” Willow spun around one last time and vanished in a flurry of leaves.
#