Ch: 244 Under Where?
Damsen toyed with the idea of filching a small boat and heading across alone… Her mistress’ commands prevented her from embarking on such a foolish venture, just as they prevented her from leaping into the sea and seeking her freedom in oblivion.
Instead, she haunted the dockyards, obscured in a glamor of music, played in a key beyond conscious human hearing. Among the bales, casks and crates she found lage shipment of bulk goods, stacked inside a cargo net awaiting delivery. ‘Wheatford, Ginger Dreadnought Co.’ read the label pasted onto the largest crate.
In the darkest hours of the night, a scarlet skinned nude woman slid a nearly empty cask into the cargo net, then carefully climbed inside, melting through the open bung hole, forming into a tightly packed barrel of sand. She surrounded her harp, wrapped securely in her robes and undergarments, nestled in the center of the keg.
A slender tendril of animated jewel sand pulled the stopper back into her keg, labeled clearly with a paper tag. ‘Garnet Sand, deliver to Wheatford’, it read in the common script.
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Gary woke about an hour before dawn, with a quiet sense of spreading ease and comfort warming him from the inside… His project downstairs was ready for the next phase. He summoned clothes around himself and slipped downstairs, leaving his pile of loved ones asleep in a happy tangle.
Deep in the workshop, Wicklowe’s enormous corpse jar was still hard at work, containing a deep red, glowing ooze that filled the bottle nearly three quarters up now. Where it had been a rosy pink, shot through with silver threads; now it was a dusky blood red, with black veins rippling through the slowly undulating mass.
He disarmed his cursed binding charm and pried the stopper free, it released with a soft ‘pop’. The scent of fresh spilled blood filled the workshop, heavy with the iron tang of violence and sudden endings. He prodded the viscous mass with a finger and got a response immediately from his Interface gift.
Vampiric Glowooze, predatory fungus, magical beast. Hematophagous, saprotroph, detritivore, arcanotroph, fungus. Inedible, highly toxic, reagent, highly magical. Bioluminescence, magisynthesis, photosynthesis hemosynthesis.
Neither animal, nor inanimate, this being is highly unstable.
“Oohh, creepy…” He muttered softly. “Don’t wanna reach into that!” With a thought, he conjured a long, hooked pole.
After a few minutes of fishing around, he hauled his artifacts to the sludgy, bloody surface. The ooze clung for a moment, sticking to the conjoined objects in a thick shell of slowly pulsating red goop.
With a sudden ‘plop’ the mass released and splatted back into the jar. Gary slid the top back on, sealing the bottle once more. Only then he turned his eyes to the magical objects dangling on his hook…
“Ohh… weird…” The gauntlet and armor pieces were still cinched tight around the club, save that it was no longer a dark construct of wet looking, black ‘mortal iron’ and hawthorn wood. It had been transformed, visually at least. The formerly black wooden parts shone a rich amber, veined in deep red and bloody hues. Iron elements of the construction were entirely gone, consumed somehow by the ooze; as were the leather parts and all of the mundane fittings. Still it remained a cohesive unit, holding itself together around the club, through some strange effect.
He reached out and touched the vambrace of his creation, expecting to receive its details. Instead he received a mildly uncomfortable jolt and a twinkling message in his eye that read:
*Warning* You are entirely incompatible with this magical construct. Interaction failed. *Warning*
“That’s not yours anymore.” Wilf said from the stairs, startling the craftsman. “They’re mine now.” He toddled down the stairs with a serious look on his face, sober even for Wilf, clearly doing his best big boy impression.
“Nahh, these things are never coming after you again buddy… I’m going to unmake them both this morning, before your m… Shai gets up. Go on upstairs, I’ll clean this up.” He smiled at his sad, sober boy, who stood there on the last step and shook his head.
“You can’t, they’re not yours anymore.” Wilf stepped down and toddled over. He grabbed Gary around his leg and hugged on tight. “They're mine, now that all the darkness and undeath is gone, they hear me calling to them… They are part of me now. I’ll need you to teach me how to make them whole again…” Wilf gave one of his rare, beautiful smiles, they were scarce, but worth the wait.
“We’ll fix it together when it’s time… Papa.”
Gary stood there poleaxed, mindlessly stroking his son’s hair for a few moments, still dangling his magical oddities on a pole over his shoulder. Wilf pulled away and huffed, then started for the stairs.
“Put those away, Papa; they’re safe to store now. Come upstairs and start breakfast, I’m hungry.”
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“Right away, son… right away.” He murmured through a foolish smile.
#
Seahorse wasn’t the only boat on the canals, it was the most unusual though. They sailed along at a steady jog, so as to not leave a muddy, churned up mess behind them.
At first, all the houses they sailed past were occupied, often by unsustainably large numbers of people. Entire families, for generations; including cousins and who knows what all, were jammed in everywhere.
People waved and hailed the boat as they passed, but they sailed on, headed up the slow flowing canal, drifting in a haze of soft music… Someone was always playing, whistling or singing something; it felt like home on the water.
Since the canals were used for irrigation as well as transport, they wound here and there across the valley, all ending up at a man made lake, near the foot of the gently steaming volcanic cone.
As they went farther from the edge of the valley, fewer families and more single men were to be seen. Near the cone, all the houses were empty and abandoned, with an aura of neglect lingering over many.
“Nobody wants to live near the volcano?” Gary asked, as the familiar scent of hotsprings drifted on the air.
“The duchess quarantined the lake and its environs for a mile. There’s an unknown and apparently hostile being in the bottom of it.” Liam replied drily. “I doubt many folks want to sleep within reach of its tentacles.”
They cruised through six locks heading up the valley to the cinder cone, ending up moored beside a canalside cottage with a thread of smoke rising from the chimney, just as the sun started thinking about evening.
An old man came clattering up from the garden behind the house, wearing enormous wooden platform clogs, designed to keep him out of the worst of the mud. “Yer in a ducal quarantine, kids. You gotta go sightsee elsewhere!” He chattered. “Not that I mind the company, but the law’s the law…”
“Canalmaster Arenjay? We are here on contract with duchess Sheng and lord Flizitz of Port Sill.” Liam sputtered, caught off guard by the idyllic setting… and the way Tawny was asleep on his lap.
“Buncha kids? Nahhh. I’m old, nae a fool. Off ye go, I’ll call the civic watch if I must… they’ll be here in a day or two.” He spoke offhandedly, while he busied himself draping a long outdoor table with a red and white checked cloth and laying out tableware. The old man stomped up to the porch and slipped free of his clunky foot furniture. He padded into the house barefoot and returned a moment later with a big wheel of cheese, a basket of fruit and a tea service.
“Are you chasing us off, or inviting us to tea?” Becky asked from the bow.
“Two things can be true at once. If yer here fer mischief, I’ll set the guards on ye, an yer truly here on contract wi her grace… well… Either way, I’m a lonely old geezer living all the way out here. You can at least entertain me for an hour or two first…”
The glib old fellow kept up a steady stream of folksy warnings that they should immediately flee the area, while also being a very fine host. The fruit and big wheel of cheese seemed to be the extent of his offerings, along with a teapot and a sad little crock containing a few meager pinches of tea leaves.
Shai bustled over with Liam and started ‘helping’ the old man with his little basket of tea things, with predictable results.
Several jars of fine tea blends appeared, along with biscuits, still warm from the oven, butter, jams and marmalades. They kept unloading the tiny basket, producing sugar, cream, small dainties and a huge platter of sandwiches. It all landed on the groaning table, accompanied by pleasant conversation, a little soft music from their minstrel and the antics of three tiny brats, gamboling on the lawn.
Together the two young people set an impressive spread on the table, all from the Canalmaster’s little wicker hamper. “Och, ye set a fine table!” Shai jeered and winked at the old man, who sat back and enjoyed the mad show, displaying the equanimity some people find in advanced age.
“So yer Adventurers… frae Wheatford.” The geezer mumbled over his teacup. “An he’s old, mad Zygnos’ apprentice an heir…” He eyed the boat, the spread of fine food and drink, pulled from nowhere and the young, unmemorable man sitting on a camp chair, playing a strange guitar.
The oddly forgettable fellow strummed his weird instrument for the dancing children and red haired giantess and sang softly, songs that made no sense at all…
The Canalmaster’s cottage backed up to a pleasant raised bed garden, since his home stood on an ancient lava flow. Its huge granite expanse remained obstinately impervious to wind, weather and time.
Standing barren at the foot of the cone, a portion of it had been quarried away and then filled with water, channeled from the slopes above, creating a deep reservoir for the canal system feeding the valley floor. A system of sluices and water gates controlled the canal’s flow, behind the old man’s garden.
The geezer jumped in his seat when he realized an unfamiliar stately home and garden now stood beside his dwelling, on the acres wide granite slab.
“We’re gonna be your neighbors tonight, we’ll go up to the lake and take care of business in the morning.” The minstrel said softly, as the music slowly faded away.
#
“We set sail for Wheatford at dawn, we land only briefly in Port Ellis, then this one is for home…” Esperanza said softly, as Yusef’s music faded away. We take on a bit of cargo this evening, spend a night moored and away with first light.”
“We will be ready to board before first bell, there will be three of us.” Rolf shifted awkwardly under Esperanza’s gaze, she was sitting awfully close… and leaning forward. “Ester, one of my companions is… an unusual person. She is… it’s difficult to explain…” He finally gasped.
“This one will not be surprised by much… We have traveled with Gary some few times and know what company he keeps.” The buxom trader chuckled quietly, causing some very distracting jiggling.
“Thank the gods… I never know who knows what when it comes to that lunatic! It’s very stressful!” He grumbled, mopping his brow with an unfamiliar hankie he found stuffed in his coat pocket. He unfolded the soft red silken scrap to wipe his face, then hurriedly tried to stuff it back in his pocket with a distressed squeak of surprise and outrage. In his frustration and confusion, he dropped the damn thing right of the edge of the aft deck. A fluttering scrap of crimson silk and lace drifted ever so slowly down onto the main deck and draped itself on the headstock of Yusef’s guitar.
“Are those sister Becky’s panties!?” Esperanza demanded loudly, drawing every eye on deck that had not already seen the naughty, flimsy undergarments as they drifted on the breeze.
“Of course not!” He gasped in outrage and horror. “Those are Angie’s…” Sir Rolf Belen stopped right there, took a deep calming breath and carefully climbed down the ladder to the main deck. He delicately removed the silken scandal from Yusef’s guitar and neatly folded them, before stuffing the shameful underthings back in his pocket.
“I may actually murder Ester before we sail, we shall see...” He told the buxom trader, who had leaned over the rail to observe his panty recovery antics, with great amusement.
“Do you often carry women’s panties on your person, sir Rolf?” She asked sweetly, knowing full well what draping herself over that railing was doing to her anatomy. Watching this beautiful boy sweat was her new favorite thing… she decided silently.
“I suspect that my companion, Ester had much to do with…” He fell silent for a moment, with a deeply suspicious look in his eyes. Rolf swiftly and silently checked each of his pockets, finding a scrap of colorful nothing in every one. “...I may just lose my sanity.”
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