Ch: 246 Iko Iko, Aye
Jocomo, first assassin of her radiance, the empress of Light, stood over the sad remains of yet another creature slain by his hand, in her name. With a sorrowful sigh, he turned to resume his journey. From the far bank, a sweet feminine voice sang out to him, before he even began moving.
“Such behavior is unseemly at any time; foolishly you court my wrath while a guest in my territory.” Willow stepped onto the bridge with a delicate, dancer’s tread. “I am called Willow, who dances by the stream… What is your name, mortal?” She sang gleefully.
More tiny blades, shining disks of iron, honed wickedly sharp, flew from the being once again. These thudded into a wooden vambrace on her left arm, conjured into being in an instant. “A friend made me this toy, recently…” She murmured, caressing her own nude body sensually as she continued to the centerpoint of the willow span. “I had not thought to test it out so soon!”
She took a single step, dancing around a thick plait of willow fronds, supporting the span. She emerged from behind that woody cable in the most unusual panoply. All clad in armor of deep, amber and red, striated with golden wood grain, she moved easily and silently on the narrow span. She bowed low, in a mocking challenge, as a staff of the same red and gold wood appeared in her hands.
Silently, the robed man moved forward in a smooth, flowing attack. His sure, gliding steps carried him onto the bridge, where his short, curved sword flashed out from within loose, flowing robes.
The keen steel edge bounced back from her wooden staff as though he had struck an iron bar, stunning his grip briefly.
She laughed gaily, as her own feet skittered across the plaited deck of tree roots. Her staff flashed in the sun as first one end, then the other cracked against the flat of his sword, driving him back.
The robed figure dug in with the balls of their feet and skittered forward in a deceptively fast scurry, sure footed and blinding quick. Just as quickly, that shining steel blade darted for her vitals, eyes, groin, belly, throat, his sword reached for one target after another… and was blocked deflected or evaded by a hair’s breadth each time. He struck for her hands and had no more success there. She spun that staff deftly in showy twirls, a mocking challenge, taunting him, but was all business when they came to grips.
Everywhere he stepped, she blocked his path, wherever he struck, her staff was there, turning his attacks. Slowly, he began to flag, exhaustion creeping in as he faced a tireless nightmare in smiling, beautiful female guise. “Are you toying with me, Spirit?” He gasped.
“I just wanted you to feel you were doing well… and I told you, I am called Willow… You have yet to give your name; how frightfully rude. I expect better manners from my playmates!”
The tiny woman grabbed a cable of vines and spun around it gracefully, landing on her opponent’s flank in an instant. Her staff lashed out, delivering a stinging strike to his buttocks; after which she giggled and pranced away, while tapping first his left ankle, then his right with her blurring fast staff.
“Now we shall see what kind of person you are, under those awful robes…”
Jocomo stumbled to the left on temporarily numb feet, barely catching himself and dangling over the edge for a moment.
With a deft, one handed spin, he twirled around the cable of braided willow fronds. He emulated her maneuver, spun back onto the bridge and landed lightly on his… ankles.
On numbed feet and sprained ankles, he staggered to the far side and collapsed onto his bruised bottom.
When he looked up, Willow was perched on a cable a few yards above him, dangling her feet over the water.
“Now, tell me your name, before I embarrass you further.”
Silently, the robed figure rolled to the right, springing back to his wobbly feet with a short, curved sword in each hand. He lurched forward, blades flashing in the sunshine.
Willow dropped to the bridge deck with a showy little somersault. When she landed, a small round shield clung to her left arm, while she gripped a short, slender cudgel in her right. She pranced forward like a maiden headed to a spring dance, deflecting and diverting his blades with shameful ease, before tapping him on the shoulder, elbow and base of his neck with her slim weapon.
A wash of tingling cold drenched his left arm, rendering it limp and nearly boneless.
“Really… if you annoy me, I will leave you numbed from the neck down and prop you up in an embarrassing pose until some wandering human passes to jeer at you…” She whispered in his ear, with a gentle kiss on that sweaty lobe.
How she managed to find herself perched on the figure’s right shoulder, with his remaining sword hand firmly in her unbreakable wooden grip was a mystery.
“I have nothing for you, spirit. Now slay me or be done.” He spat, shaking off what remained of his headpiece and veil.
“Oh, a human indeed… and so young and pretty!” She cooed, once the concealing garment’s spell was broken.
“You have some nerve getting snippy, after you were so rude a few minutes ago.”
He sat in sullen anger, silently awaiting his fate, while she stalked around him and huffed. “You are a bit too dangerous to let wander around willy-nilly… stubborn too!” She leaned over him and began rooting through his robes in a briskly professional manner, extracting all his possessions, tools and weapons with cold, clinical professionalism. “Don’t feel too badly, I have been studying the martial arts of mortal kin since your species developed them.” She whispered gently to her captive.
“Streeka, what do you think? This is mortal business really.” She called into the reeds nearby.
“There is a deadly venom on these blades he flung about so freely, lady Willow. It’s best I did not reveal myself before this.” The slender, lithe form of an otter woman slipped from the reeds, she paused a moment and shook herself dry, flinging rainbow droplets across the lovely little vale.
“I have no truck with spirits or animals. Be done with me or slay me.” He snarled at first sight of the otter shaman.
“Ahh, an imperial. The empress’ dog thinks himself so superior to we poor vermin…” The otter woman sighed sadly. “They train them from birth to despise other kith and kin.” She remarked, ignoring his glare of impotent outrage.
“Do what you will, animal. I won’t provide your entertainments.” The unnamed warrior snapped, refusing to even meet Streeka or Willow’s eyes.
“What, boy? You think we shall eat you now you are in our power? Torture you for our ‘savage, barbarian pleasures’? Faugh, I’ve met enough of your people to know what filth they drag your minds through.” She turned to her dryad friend and muttered softly. “He won’t answer, that’s an imperial indenture tattoo. He’ll believe anything of us, save that we mean him no evil.”
She sat back on a warm patch of grass, watching the helpless warrior with concern in her eyes. “What could an imperial slave soldier be doing alone… all the way out here?” She wondered aloud.
“A dangerous one too, lady Willow. Had I greeted him so, I would be long dead and this poor creature would never have thought twice of it. Shameful and dangerous to let such things wander freely on the roads.”
Streeka took some cruel delight in watching the young man stiffen in fury at being spoken of so, by an ‘animal’, no less. “He will answer no questions, nor act with any honor towards us; as he has been taught from birth that we are beneath contempt.” She sneered at the human captive.
“What should we do with him? Killing seems wasteful, but if he’s spoiled…” Willow muttered, as she continued searching her captive. A small heap of dangerous toys gathered at her feet: knives, needles, coils of steel wire, another sword, a pair of wooden truncheons with cunningly concealed short scythe blades hidden away… Along with a surprising number of color coded metal and glass vials with securely sealed tops. No other identifying marks could be found on the collection of small canisters and bottles.
“Dangerous indeed…” Willow muttered, flicking a wooden thumbnail across a keen steel edge with a musical ringing sound. “I would not have interfered with you, were not some friends of mine just down this road…” Willow grumbled unhappily at the heap of envenomed weapons at her feet.
“Carlos and Jerry are hauling chocolate, they are ill equipped to face a dangerous zealot on the roads.”
“Chocolate?” Her prisoner demanded sharply. “Speak creature, this touches on my mission!”
“Ohh… now it can speak to us… did its precious empress, ruler of a dwindling dung heap kingdom send it seeking the Sweet Tooth guild?” Streeka chittered angrily. “Tis ever the way with Imperials… we are less than dust beneath their feet until they want something.”
“I did not address the animal, spirit.” He snarled
“Gods and spirits blight you both.” Willow sighed. “I never paid attention to mortal politics, so I don’t know or care…” She briskly flipped her captive over and tied him neatly with cordage of woven willow fronds, still green and alive. “Thank you for your advice, Streeka, but I think it’s best I manage him from here.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The lithe otter shaman bowed to Willow and slipped over the edge and into the water with a quiet splash. She swam away without even a backward look.
“Jerry and Carlos can haul you to Wheatford, they are human and entirely trustworthy. After that, you can jump in the river and drown yourself for all I care.” She dragged him off to the huge tree supporting the bridge and under its fronds.
“You will be my guest until we arrive in Wheatford; then I will be shed of you.”
#
The Wilderness Road joined the Coast Road at the lovely Dryad Willow bridge, one of the greatest sights on the already scenic journey.
Most folk assumed the name to be a fancy, or local nonsense, Carlos found the name more than apt and looked forward to each time he passed it. From here on, they would find a cottagewillow to stay under every night, comfy homes hidden in plain sight all along the Coast Road.
When lady Willow herself stepped onto the bridge as they approached the intersection where the roads met, he was startled, to say the least.
“Willow… how?” He sputtered, while his familiars brayed with delight at her appearance in broad daylight.
“A mutual friend made me a physical body… transporting it here was surprisingly challenging, but so worthwhile.” She purred happily, while the donkeys nuzzled her in the real world for the very first time. “Shifting physical matter through the ether is difficult, even when so well attuned to my own essence…”
“Willow… who is that person tied, buns up kneeling beside the bridge span?” Jerry asked gently.
“Oh, him… never mind that… Come Jerry, spar with me now that I have a physical form! We will have so much fun on our journey together!” She spun on her toes and landed wearing a suit of armor not unlike Jerry’s own, with a long staff of burnished ironwood in her hands.
Jerry gave a brisk nod and drew a pair of wooden training swords from his gear. “Watch close, Carlos… I suspect that at least one of us is going to learn something…”
That was all Jerry had time to say, before she was on him, tapping him all over with her staff, gently exposing every gap in his defense, footwork and stance.
When Jerry sank to a fallen log beside the junction of the roads, he was drenched in sweat and lightly battered all over. “Go get her Carlos, I think she’s almost done in…” The veteran Adventurer gasped with a wicked grin on his sweaty face.
“Yes sir, senior Adventurer!” The lad called bravely, as he charged in with his wooden practice spear.
“You lied to me Jerry…” Carlos gasped, an embarrassingly short time later. “But I think I have her on the back foot… You should get in there and finish her off…” He wheezed.
“You can take her!”
“Oh yes, I’m on my last legs…” Willow sang happily from her bridge. “Surely you will defeat me now!”
“No, lady Willow… I’m already going to have a rough morning.” He groaned. “Let’s look at this poor sot you have trussed up. Did he offend you in some way?”
Jerry rolled to his feet and strolled over to where the man lay, bound hand and foot, bent over a small boulder with his head over the stream bank and his ass in the air.
“He tried to murder me, actually. He was quite rude about it too.” Willow said softly, while slipping between Jerry and her captive. “Were I a mortal, he might have succeeded… Do not approach him, he is a dangerous one. He had quite the selection of envenomed and pointy things, a suspicious pharmacy as well…”
Jerry peered over at the prisoner, snatching a peek at his face. “Imperial indenture tattoo… he’s far from home.”
#
They’d placed the house near the water’s edge, but not too near. Seahorse bobbed on the middle of the lake, with a single pole over the side and a line dropped into the depths.
Gary leaned on the steersman’s bench with a fishing pole in his hand, while Shai played with his hair. Down on the lake there was no wind and no noticeable current; so they drifted slowly around, pulsing the engine from time to time to hold a general position over his weighted line.
“So ye did drop that dolly in the lake an then what? We float here til doomcrack?” Shai complained. “I would rather hae a fumble wi thee in some sheltered cove… save that we dinnae truly ken whae lurks below.”
“I read Quizlas’ story, Shai… maybe I’m a fool, but he felt… lonely, desperate and hopeful. If he’s still down there, he’ll come talk.” Gary murmured softly. “Gimme a few more minutes, then we’ll pull up and head in for the evening. I’ll try again after full dark… he could be nocturnal.”
She grumbled gently and sighed. “Soft hearted fool indeed an me, soft in the head fer followin ye.”
The sun sank a little lower in the afternoon sky, but still nothing answered the bait below them. It took some time to reel it in, so Shai motored slowly for shore while Gary cranked on his reel. They were almost at the pier, when his white clay mannikin doll broke the surface. Only barely humanoid in form, it was a crude figure, in sun baked white clay, bearing a dark spot on the figure’s forehead.
That dark spot of Cameron’s blood, tainted with the squid being’s ink and magic thrummed and pulsed with a slow spreading aura every few heartbeats. It continued, until Gary wrapped it in a ritual cloth of flax, embroidered with Cameron’s own name in an infinite, recursive spiral of alphabets, runes and scripts.
The spells woven into the cloth contained and redirected that pulse of false aura back into the doll, rendering it spiritually silent, when not needed. Shai sighed again in wonder at her mad boy’s tricks and set about mooring Seahorse.
#
Qislaz shifted over to find a slightly warmer area, deep in the volcanic rift that was his new home. Dismal, dark, often cold and always faintly sulfurous, it was home, now. He crawled out into the frigid waters of the lake, seeking one of the natives to snack on. The crayfish were his favorite, reminding him faintly of the tasty salt lobsters of his home. Despite lacking their tasty, salt encrusted shells… He released a small blot of ink into the water, as he remembered his warm, sunlit home.
Slowly, he darkened his skin to match the jagged lava flows around him and crept through the canyons and fissures, seeking prey. He crept over a sheet of frozen volcanic ejecta and spotted a big, juicy example… a muddy brown, scuttling armored hooligan, scavenging in the crevices for anything edible.
With a gleeful jet of water from his outlet, he spurted silently down onto his meal, swiftly rolling its dangerous pincers up in a few tentacles.
The beast struggled briefly as the cephalopod’s stinging appendages wrapped around and wriggled through his armor. A moment later, his beak began snipping through the creature’s underbelly, with a satisfying crunch.
It was a biggun, grown hideous and mutated, as they sometimes did. The flavor remained delightfully nostalgic in any case.
He munched down the tomale and innards right in the spot and dragged the rest down to his cavern. As he was slipping through the canyons with his provisions, something familiar entered his humble domain. The aura of that two legged local, from so long ago washed faintly over the lake bottom, pulsing steady, thrumming with his own spell and emanating from the upper depths, where the lake bed shattered into jagged stone teeth and claws.
In a panic, he abandoned his feast and squirted for the deepest, darkest lake bottom. If those awful airbreathers had developed a way to attack him here…
He waited down there for a long time, sitting still and blending into the rough, shattered stones of the abyssal deeps. Constant and harmless, the aura pulsed out, almost as though it were a signal.
Desperate hope warred with fear and trauma in his hearts and brains, churning his insides terribly. Hunger took a distant second place to the fear those creatures evoked in him, but perhaps…
Certainly the signal was too static, too monotone to be anything but a projection of some kind of sorcerous artifice.
As the sun sank lower, he crawled up from the utter deeps, creeping closer to whatever was signaling. Dangling from a long line was not a living being, but a simulacrum, cast in some white earthen substance and anointed with the bodily fluids of his unfortunate victim. Traces of his own ink resonated, whispering that perhaps his spells had unwound as intended… Perhaps they understood?
Before he could come to a decision, the tiny mannikin began rising to the surface, carrying its soundless call away.
#
“Could it be that he’s found his own way home?” Tawny asked hopefully, as the family gathered for an early dinner. Darkness would come quickly, down on the crater floor.
“Nope. I feel… something to the northwest. Some thread of foreign magic, crossing my boundaries and sinking into the lake. If he can’t or won’t come up and talk, we could just find that source of binding magic and break it.” Gary shrugged ambivalently. “His curse suggested he wanted to talk… If there’s no answer when I call tonight, we’ll go find that ritual site.”
They were seated in the common room, with wide windows overlooking the lake and village, a few dozen yards below. A wide, natural outcropping of barren lava made a fine vantage point and kept them nicely away from the water’s edge, across a beach of soft black sand.
Arenjay was lecturing Shai and Tallum on the local fishing lore, from when folk still fished Crater Lake. “Was stocked with pike, catfish, trout and bass centuries ago, big crawdaddies and worse in the deeps.” He burbled happily. “No natural outlets in the lake, so fish go in and stay put. We farmed rice around the edges, made fer great clamming, fishing and such.”
“No prior monster problems?” Liam asked with eagerness.
“No more than you’d expect. ‘Daddies and skeeters go monster most often, dragonflies an craneflies from time to time. Occasional frog or toad.” He murmured. “Lots of Adventurers retired around here, used to be. They kept sharp tidying up such problems.” He sighed.
“So, does anyone else find it odd that there’s nothing here?” Liam asked quietly. “All those abandoned farms and fields, the paddies… nothing overgrown or weird came charging out.”
The young people and their aged companion looked out over the crater, surveying their little world. High, jagged cliffs cut off most access, only three obvious trails cut down the inner slopes from the crown. They descended in jagged switchbacks for a hundred and fifty yards, nearly straight down to the crater floor.
Jagged monoliths of obsidian and granite jutted up from the warm, fertile soil of the valley, like the bones of a half buried race of stoney giants. The lake filled a full three quarters of the crater, leaving a wide half moon of soil and beach around the eastern edge.
Houses were cut into the stone cliff faces or terraced on the slopes, looking down on the overgrown fields below. Piers jutted here and there below the stone village, their planks warped and mossy with disuse.
“Yeah… with no people or natural predators…” Dannyl sang over his guitar. “Should be something around.”
“That also makes me think he’s still down there, or at least some apex predator.” Gary said with a smile.
#
Beneath the towering willows, the dryad lounged on Carlos’ lap, leaning back against him, as he leaned against the trunk of the tree. “Oh, this is just as delightful in the mortal realm…” She sighed, curling up close. “Human auras cannot feed my essence as a druid’s might, but the flavor of your soul is just as sweet.” She sighed in delight.
Her captive stiffened in fear at that; he was trussed on the other side of the tunk, securely bound for the night in a hammock of entangling fronds. “No, foolish human, Carlos is not being consumed.” She giggled at her dangling prisoner.
“Just as a mortal tree takes in the light of the sun, rain and your mortal breath and waste; so too, a dryad collects the aura emanations of living beings. Like the light of the sun on a mortal tree, we bask in the light some mortals give off… I am taking nothing from you all, that you are not freely casting into the world, simply by living.”
“So I am feeding you in some subtle way?” Carlos softly asked the small woman curled around him inside his cloak.
“No, sweet Carlos, you are not one of those rare and precious creatures whose light gives my people and thus, this entire world, hope. You are simply a warm and radiant friend, your embrace soothes me in ways that are very mortal.” She sighed. “Perhaps in another life you were, or might be someday… mortality is tricky, you can all be so many things!”
Jerry stretched out on his bedroll and yawned. “So we give off some emanation that you enjoy? So why do you not interact with broader mankind? Surely I’ve passed by your kin before in my travels and I’ve never met one of you ‘ere this.”
The small woman smiled from Carlos’ cloak and pulled herself closer to her boy. “Together, with so many other beings, some sentient, some not, we all work together and dwell together in this world… and so many others. When in balance we, all living and spiritual beings in this world, exist in a constant state of mutual cooperation, conflict and ignorance.” She smiled benignly at her audience.
“Your lives and my tree’s existence are dependent on so many other creatures and beings, many of which you are completely unaware of… Just as you remain blissfully ignorant of the many creatures that inhabit your own bodies…”
Jerry listened thoughtfully, before asking the obvious question. “So why reveal yourself now?” He whispered softly. “What has changed?”
“Dryads and trees, trees and dryads… Where trees thrive, we thrive, they are our physical forms basking in the light of the sun and so many other suns, uncounted across the multiverse.” She spoke slowly and carefully, choosing her words with care.
“Our trees need sun, soil, water and other elements to grow and thrive. So to do dryads, we thrive on the emanations of certain souls. We cherish these and cannot thrive in their absence, like a tree in a dark room, we wither and vanish.” Her smile made the insects that illuminated their bower glow even more brightly. They released a chorus of musical chirps and squeaks as her profound joy washed over the tree.
“Now, after so terribly long, our druids are coming back and bringing strange new things along with them… Like my new ‘Super Sexy Magic Mecha’ body.”
“Wait… are you saying that our mad new friend is..?” Jerry fell silent when Willow shot him a sharp glance and hissed softly.
“Secrets are for keeping Jerry… and my captive is listening. He can hear my tale, since it is the birthright of all humanity. We did cultivate your minds and teach you speech, after all.” Her snuggling form vanished into her friend’s cloak with a happy sigh.
#