Ch: 70 Grave Matters
Dannyl gazed up at the strange sky of Gary’s personal island in the nether realm. The starry firmament seemed ordinary. As long as he ignored the array of bubbles and ribbons glowing in a semi transparent dome above the place… and the creatures that flew, drifted or swam beyond.
On land things were not much improved. NotGary was everywhere, dozens of him all over the island, working, meditating, exercising or debating among themselves. Several Shai-lites were mingling, along with a few AlmostBeckies, NearlyAmys and KindaWilfords scattered here and there.
Huge spiders crawled the exterior walls, webbing and entrapping horrors while a terrible furry spider larger than a ram supervised from inside the garden.
The disoriented young man was trying to come to grips with the strange place, so tranquil and busy, crowded and intimate; when his god bustled up and took his hand.
“Dannyl! Finally, we have all been hoping to see you or Liam for a while now… let’s get to work.” Marduk tugged gently and drew the young man down into the basement.
“In this place, time and space are less rigid, we can get you basic literacy in a few minutes. Practice will be required to become proficient of course. We will take you up and introduce you to Thirp and a few other friends later.”
#
A still groggy and injured Dannyl stayed in the house with Ivy, Herlick and Tawny, ostensibly guarding the prisoners. They were still imobile and largely unconscious, no one was interested in getting them back on their feet in a hurry.
“Light duty for you, guard duty for me…” Herlick said idly, while fingering a guitar from Gary’s stock. “Show me something of this, young Dannyl. Your lot seem to have great fun making music together.”
Tawny bustled over, made a show of examining the young warrior’s right wrist and finally nodded with great deliberation. “Very well. No ‘dense metals’ or whatever that awful noise of Gary’s is. We have injured people here and you are one of them.”
Dannyl grinned and got started, while Ivy began rattling a small hand drum from the shelves. “See that little glass bead at the base of each string? When it lights up you are in tune. Adjust it here…”
#
The rest of the group had a slow and careful climb, navigating a dizzying array of switchbacks carved into the mesa. Pairs would break off occasionally to explore the interior, the presumed human dwellings were never more than a few yards deep.
A front room, usually crumbled away and exposed to the elements and a few narrow chambers, bedrooms perhaps, carved into the cliff at the rear was the standard.
They stretched on for miles, each step of the mesa had row upon row of similar structures, some showing simple stonework repairs to the walls, others in complete disarray. The steps had zigzag inclines at each corner, allowing travel by animal or cart, along with stairs at regular intervals as well. Most were crumbled and impassable.
They paused three steps up, before entering the abandoned campsite, to survey the land around. Many more steps of mesa loomed behind them, but the altitude gave a nice view of the desolate region below.
Their mesa was the only verdant patch in sight, the distant hills with their sparse trees, several miles away were little more than a dull brown haze. Reddish clay earth spread out below them, flat and uniform.
Only the faintest hints in the dusty plain suggested that it had been irrigated in the distant past. A network of very faint ditches and furrows showed where canals had been, almost imperceptible at ground level.
The campsite was uninformative and uninteresting. Bannock, the brave soul, even turned over the rubbish pile at the bottom of a small fissure.
“Disgusting and useless.” they declared, while washing up in the stream that flowed down the stone from a tremendous cleft in the stone wall. Greenery sprang from the opening in a wild tangle, nearly concealing the vague outline of a gaping monster’s jaws that some unknown artisans had carved into the rock in ages long past.
“Let’s peek in there, I see some latent magical traces in the air.” Luna held up her hand. “Not you boy, you are too messy. Let us look first, stay here with your drunken tree spirit.”
“The venerable spirit of plumsh ish never intoxsh… inoxshi… drunk! She is merely disoriented by the… I am growing rather fond of you Gary druid fool.” She curled back up in his coat and went to sleep again.
Fortunately, only Becky and Gary had to listen to her drunken ramblings, since she was back in stick insect form until she could sober up.
A few minutes later Gary joined them inside the mountain, in a cavern that was open to the sky, but felt very enclosed.
“It’s a giant crypt. All of it.” He whispered, looking down into the depths.
Roots and vines twined all around, radiating from the spring, bubbling up from the center of the majestic main chamber. Several dozen yards in, the rift in the mountain became an actual cave, a precipice looking out into darkness below.
A spiraling ramp coiled its way down the inside of the mountain, niches and alcoves cut into the stone every few strides down the path held remains, presumably human. Only the occasional tooth or dome of an uncracked skull showed where the soil and mortal remnants were mixed.
“The spring is magical, its source is some arcane working I am unfamiliar with.” Luna warned as Gary approached. He touched a finger to the stream and got confirmation, simple water, nothing exotic. The greenery was the same, the soil came back as something else.
Crypt earth, soil, remains, component, reagent, catalyst. The mortal remains of a sentient or sentients, decomposed over time by natural means, undisturbed. This resource is complex, valuable and ethically ambiguous.
“Huh, interesting… I like this place, it feels… restful.” Gary said softly, breathing in slow and deep to savor the quietus aura of the grave.
“Gross. Can we get out of here, the bodies go on forever down there.” She backed from the edge, looking uncomfortable.
“Not forever Becks, just a few miles. They ran out of people, can you feel it? They were so close.” Gary was roaming nearer the edge, fondling the plants and stirring the crud with his fingers.
“Gary stop it, that’s creepy.” Liam said loud enough to break the stillness. “Come back, we have to get back to town and hand this filth over to Order.”
“Mmm? You guys go on… I’ll be back… so close. Almost there…” He sat on the edge, legs dangling over the gulf with his huge flute.
The haunting melody of ‘Dead Man’s Party’ floated out into the abyss and up to the yawning reaches above, also carved with endless niches. They spiraled up as well as down, most of the alcoves were erupting in vines and vegetal growth.
“I see it now, druid man, why you distressed me so.” Plumeria whispered from his collar. “Most men have only a tenuous connection to the energies of death and dissolution, a remnant echo of prior live’s ending.”
She shrugged her many shoulders silently. “We dryads have none, for we spring from life and are eternal. You are steeped in the energies of life’s endings. You burn your own essence in the furnace of your rage, powering the life you lead with the inexhaustible fuel of your own soul.”
Her insectile noggin shook with pity. “Such a thing should be impossible, but I gather you find that assessment amusing.”
His flute sang a low melody of amusement, just a hint of ragtime. “In this place I feel your connection to the beyond more keenly, it is bittersweet and melancholy. You have a very unusual connection to Joy.”
The melody ended, but his chuckle, and the steady rhythm of his words kept the music rolling gently along.
“My therapist says the same, you would like her. If we sleep under your tree this summer maybe you can visit”
He picked up on the echo and resumed his music, gentle and softly coaxing.
“Come on Gary, we have to go back. The others are waiting.” Becky said quietly, loath to disturb the music.
She spoke again, softly but with much greater urgency. “Gary, we need to go now.” Her slender fingers drew an unerring line to a nightmare descending from above them.
A legion of moldering human remains crawled down the monolith, carried on dozens of many jointed insect limbs, composed of corpse arms and legs.
A bulbous abdomen of crumbling, skeletal torsos linked hands, creating a shifting net, to restrain and surround a colossal ball of silky, shining floss that pulsed with subtle life.
The vast backside wobbled as the creature clattered its bones down the rock wall, toward the musician. Flakes and clots of material rained down as it moved, dusting the chasm with itself.
“Living men come here no longer. I keep this place for the dead. Why am I disturbed after so long?” The slack jawless skulls of a thousand dead men and women asked in a myriad of voices. “Have you come to complete your task and send the sacred mycelium far and wide? Shall my spores drift on the wind at last?”
Gary kept playing as the corpse spider of a thousand empty graves descended the cave wall above him.
“I have to talk to my new friend, Becks. I’ll be out in a bit.”
#
“Signal fire on bald mountain, blue, the war party will be home tomorrow.” Mikkel announced down into the workshop, while bouncing Wilford on his knee. “I’m sure your boy will give you all the details tonight.”
“Those dreams are mine ye old skinflint! I do nae carry yer reports an messages in the night!” She grumbled from the depths, through the open door.
“Shai is mad, she wanted to go treasure hunting but auntie Herlick dug it up herself.” Amy confided to the old man.
“Oh yes Amy, in Adventure guild law, a treasure hunt is a very special thing. If a person is fool enough to contract you for a treasure hunt, always take it.” The old codger whispered.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“T’was a ducal tax box. Fool Tallum did offer tae dowse it fer free, so keen is he tae use his new gift.” She grumbled as she came upstairs.
“He were dead on too, I should like to hae dug that box and had a share of that loot.” Pure avarice and something deeper glinted in her eye. “I should someday like tae find a treasure map. As in the stories and tales.”
“The dread p… Shai is not a pirate at all, grandpa Mikkel.” Amy lied unconvincingly.
“Whatever happened to Devin the cartographer?” Hannah asked from the table by the fire where she was embroidering.
“Eaten, some voracious swamp beast. Snatched him out of the saddle and flew away. He got a good lay of the land before the end I suppose.” The old Adventurer sighed. “We lost so many. Now in a few generations we will likely lose it all.”
“Thirp and Ducky say we can win.” Amy said with absolute surety. “So did Ack… Acc… the big spider. He said someone was cheating.”
“Would that I had your confidence, lass. You have naught to worry about. Your brothers and sisters handled that worm and the warriors are almost home. I’m certain we will get some answers.”
Hannah offered her input from her seat, needle still silently dipping in and out of her hoop.
“Gossip says that smith boy remembers nothing, even in Order’s temple he couldn’t recall much of the last two months. He doesn’t even remember signing a smith’s apprenticeship.” She snugged a knot and snipped its thread with vicious precision.
“Naiomi the crone, Otho, and Amicus have been hunched over your bucket of snot for a while now. Any word from them? The knitting circle is hungry for news.” She began with a new strand of brightly dyed thread.
“Thou doth well know how wizards behave… no doubt yer knitting grannies will hae the news ere they blot the ink on their notes.” She grumped, with a sour look at the new gate to the Adventure compound. “I kinnae do me business behind a gate… Fie, I do enjoy the security wi the others away.”
#
The weary adventurers trooped into the market ward three hours after sunrise. Camping in the cold after that one blissful night at the inn was a trial, even for veterans.
The warriors had scattered to the ward to resupply and enjoy the market, while one member followed along with the merchant to ‘escort’ him per their contract.
It was also entertaining. Runningtree took the first turn, standing in his shadow as he marched up to a shawarma booth and demanded the location of the “sweets guild of Wheatford”
The beautiful girl behind the stall smiled and brandished a spoon slathered with something white and tangy.
“Beef, mutton, or groundworm, its wild caught, Adventurer harvested!” She asked, her smile and demeanor undimmed by his attitude.
“I asked a question girl!” He barked in annoyance. “Fool leaves a child in charge of his shop…” the merchant muttered into his collar in the cold.
Her dark eyes flashed, as she tossed her ebon ringlets in subtle fury. “The question booth is by the gate. This is a sandwich stall, though the soup is good too…” She smiled at Runingtree, with a wink and a sigh.
“Ohh an Adventurer! Mutton, beef or groundworm? The worm is wild caught. Adventuring seems a glamorous life… I haven't the courage though, tis the merchant’s life for a coward like me.” She ignored the fuming and stamping merchant, slicing from a rotating log of meat, turned by a very satisfied and sleek looking dog in a treadwheel.
“The mutton is excellent.” She murmured around her sandwich as Angbold stomped on. He was having no luck; direct inquiries hit a stone wall as the tight knit town closed ranks.
As a fringe born Adventurer, moving among civilized men, she knew the signs. She, in contrast, was welcomed cheerfully, as were her brothers and sisters scattered through the market.
The local Adventure guild seemed popular, unlike so many small towns where the guild tended to stagnate and become an annoyance.
Angbold’s questions went nowhere, any query that touched on the sweets that were proliferating from the region, shut the citizens tighter than a miser's purse.
In desperation, he went to the local trade office, staffed by a young junior knight of order. Among the public records of recent complaints he found his answer.
“Where is this, Gary Ward, cultist of Secret? Sounds a fool…” He complained to the young knight.
“Oh, so you do know him! He’s out of town on Adventure guild business, a public contract for the duchy. Ginger Dreadnought is their troupe’s name, more a band really…” The irate merchant stomped off to the guild association to investigate further.
#
“The Sweet Tooth guild, confectioners, duly registered secret society.” The clerk said happily. “They have been making some waves locally, it’s all very exciting!”
“What is their address and who are their chartered officers?” He demanded curtly, dimming the clerk’s smile.
“No address, no officers on public record. It’s a secret society. They pay the excise tax for occult activities.” Unfortunately the clerk was a man, that blunted Angbold’s primary method. He slid a copper mark across the desk under an information request form.
“Bribery of an official for less than standard rate is an offense master Angbold.” He sniffed. “Bureaucrat's guild charter states that the bribe for a secret societie’s information is ten percent over that year’s occult excise tax.”
He tapped a small box on the Sweet Tooth guild’s public charter. “One gold half this quarter, master Angbold. That information will cost you one gold half mark and one bronze mark.” The clerk was smiling again, and not happily, he looked almost hungry, as he dropped the coins into the tax box.
“I am looking forward to your upcoming meetings with the guild’s officers, master merchant Angbold, I do hope you will come by again after they are done with… when your mission concludes.”
“Adventurers… I will go, myself. These types only respond to authority and discipline. Orphans…” He grumbled sourly.
“They are a challenge to deal with, though our new guild master is a highly decorated veteran, newly retired from War’s legion.” He sighed and leaned on his counter. “The master is to marry his deputy at spring festival, it promises to be a fine feast!”
“I will be wed this spring myself… Fatima has finally agreed to be mine, we danced together in the craft ward square this summer… every day! Journeyman Shai and her silly musician brought us together at last…” The man was still maundering and sighing at his desk when Angbold stomped out the door.
Neither man paid any mind to Adventurer Evard, lounging nearby, listening eagerly and munching on a shawarma. Adventurers on contract prized the ability to vanish into the background, Evard was an expert at being uninteresting and not remarkable.
He traded off with Larksong at the market, lounging by the carriage and chatting with Gannet the coachman. She and her new beau grinned widely when the whole band formed up for the last leg of their contract. They were headed to the compound anyway.
#
Angbold the master merchant was having no luck slipping past the retiree in a green cap by the gate. The cap was the same design, but lacked the distinctive chocolate brown and silver rampant horse design of the SweetTooth guild. That was the whole point of a secret society.
“I have business with the master of this guild, Mikkel the plasterer!” He blurted, stamping furiously.
“Mikkel retired, he is in seclusion, the guild master will return in a week… more or less.” Carl had only one hand and one eye, but was still hale and a skilled swordsman in his sixties. He eyed the men and women lined up behind the merchant and sighed.
“Brothers and sisters.” He nodded to them and stepped aside, directly in front of the aggrieved merchant.
“You allow my guards in but deny me?” He used his shrill Voice of Outrage gift to soften the man’s will.
Three inches of bared steel and a hard look from the old warrior cut his magical manipulation off sharply. “Try that again and you will bleed.”
“Runningtree! This ruffian threatens me!” Angbold shouted to the departing band.
“Good, try that again and my guild brother will not be the one bleeding you, I will. Our contract ended at the city gates anyway. Farewell, please consider us for your next journey, sadly our rate has doubled.” She waved cheerfully, her long black braids decorated with beads of ivory and cut turquoise clattered softly as she bid him a fond farewell.
When Gannet and his two chestnut mares ambled through the gate, leaving the fine gilt and colorful carriage in the square, Angbold nearly burst.
“Hitch back up and take me to some kind of inn or accommodations man!” He shrilled in fury.
“The name is Gannet, journeyman of the teamster’s and drayman’s guild.” He snorted, his two familiars echoed his snort in perfect time. “Pull it yourself, my contract ended right there. Please consider dragging your own ass over the mountain, I’ll not give you a reference to any of my guild brothers.”
Fully enraged, he turned back to the guard. “Let me see the guild master’s deputy then!”
“Luna is also away on guild business. This is an Adventure guild… we don’t keep office hours. Monsters do not make appointments.”
“Send me this Gary Ward, cultist of Secret fool the instant he returns.” He fumed at the grizzled veteran.
“I will surely give him your message. That you can rely on. As to when he will come to you…” The man grinned insolently. “He is one of our local oddities, he could appear at any moment, certainly by spring festival.”
“Gods, is there any officer of this company that is in town?” The merchant sneered.
“Journeyman smith Shai is in town, shall I send her your token? The Adventure guild is closed while the master and deputy are out of town, but I can send a runner.” The man seemed enthusiastic at the thought.
“I will be at Weyland’s inn in the craft quarter, send her to me at third bell tomorrow. Gods, these upland provincials, so tiresome!” He stomped off with one last foul look at his carriage and the gate guard.
Down in the market ward he was having no luck finding a coachman and team. “No coaches in town friend, Harlan’s new apprentice at the smithy has a donkey, or maybe try the lumberyard, Anders has a team of donkeys…”
#
Gary ambled out of the cave an hour later, as sunset approached. “Sorry guys, let’s go home. He agreed to take the remains off our hands, leave them out and he will ‘collect’ them tonight… don’t ask.”
He strode off as the group gathered themselves. “Gotta get home, then head back to Wheatford in the morning, big stuff is happening. I’ll tell you in the bath.”
#
“Axiolit’ieielie is a mouthful.” Gary said happily. “Our new buddy Axio is a spirit, like Plumeria, but a spirit of this place.” Gary lounged back in the pool, looking healthier by the minute.
“He’ll seem a little dark and creepy but that’s temporary, he's a nice guy and has been waiting a long time to finally get things going.”
“He looked like the worst undead monster I can imagine Gary. I’m still shaking.” Becky whispered.
“Aura of terror, no living person can stand in his presence without feeling that right now. He’s a grave guardian, fed by the remnant Will and Animus of every shade that ever passed through this place.” Gary sighed with pleasure.
“The worm wranglers summoned their tentacle buddy here by murdering those two porters, they thought this was just a convenient site to do their dirty work. Axio took that personally, and finally woke up.” Gary took a dunk under and hopped out, making room for another Bather in the pool.
Lounging in a warm robe by the edge, he continued his tale.
“Ten thousand years ago… or so… it’s kinda hazy about time here. A long ass fucking time ago, a group of humans settled here and began growing a society. This is the land of the fairy, so time marches on and on.”
“These people were farmers and had an odd culture all their own. They mummified their dead and stored them here, to slowly transform this desert into a garden.”
“There’s a whole thing, very cycle of life and affirming. The whole mortal remains of our forebears bringing new life to barren places, sacred earth vibe.”
“Plumeria is still chatting with him… I think they are hitting it off.” Gary winked so saucily even Vera chuckled.
“Long story short, the people eventually forgot why they were stashing bodies here, then they forgot that they ever did stash bodies here. Now things have been brewing way too long and Axio is ready to burst with new life.”
“Think mushroom forest, kingdom of the fungi. By next summer this is going to be an active, living place again. He just needed a little push, Becky and I started him going by showing up. He wants humans to come here again.”
“So he is a spirit like Kai?” Becky asked, finally beginning to relax.
“Oh no, he’s an ent, much closer to a male dryad. Don’t tell her I said that. At the moment he is a spirit of death and decay, by dawn he will be a spirit of renewal and life, just a very different kind.” Gary was munching his way through a bowl of groundworm curry over rice. “Ents shift and change their natures in the way dryads don’t. He will be nothing like what Becky saw by morning. This is great!”
#
They prepared to leave at dawn at Gary’s insistence. “Axio is shy, he needs some time to work his magic.” He said. “Don’t look back ok? We just ride out and when we come back it will be amazing.”
Herlick could not resist looking back as the sun came up over the desert. Watching the sunrise over the clouds and mesas as a quietly clattering horde of nightmare skull beetles scurried out of the verdant mesa.
Human skulls, carried on scuttling insect legs, bearing a cranium worth of grave soil in their heads, spread from the mountain in a swarming wave. Each horror beetle deposited their load, sprinkling it onto the bare dusty soil from its own eye sockets and returned for more in a spectacularly disconcerting way…
“I told you not to look back… most people get uncomfortable when life and death overlap. My buddy says the place where life and death meet is the fulcrum on which the universe stands.”
“Your ‘buddy’ the spider? Or your new ‘buddy’ the undead horror?” Herlick asked, through strained and pale lips.
“The Devourer of Souls, they’ve been hanging around for a while now. Though they are also omnipresent and older than the concept of sentience, so what do they really know about death...?” He shrugged merrily in the morning light.
“Who wants some doo wop? Tallum gimme a rama-lama ding-dong on three!” The return journey with their sullen and silent prisoners was swift and pleasant, for the ones not bound and gagged.
Bannock and Herlick took personal charge of the surviving pair, ensuring their silence with enchanted collars. “Influence and control magic are not uncommon. They can do all the talking they like back in town.”
Gary grinned happily as he trotted alongside the cart. “Ahmed Rajesh did some talking before he went on to his reward. He was supposed to cut these two’s throats and feed them to the worms too, but he got nervous when the magic ticked up around him.” Gary jerked a thumb at the bound duo, without missing a beat on his guitar.
“His boss the worm demon is still playing dumb, but I will get my answers from it, I already found their dirty secret.” His grin widened as the cultists jerked uncomfortably.
“Their cult’s funeral rites and sacrificial rituals are designed to bypass the local death gods, but when you do one on someone's doorstep… These assholes are in an outsider cult that practices human sacrifice and the torture of sentients.”
He played a familiar tune, switching to the loud, raucous and screaming sounds of his homeland. “You two shitbags are not going to have fun. Time to head home at full speed, gang! Stay with me for the rhythm changes!”
‘Jumpin Jack Flash’ made no sense at all, but the miles flew by at a speed that should have killed horses and crippled men.
On the evening of the second day, Wheatford’s lights came into view. They pressed on in the dark to get home just as the Uplands gate was closing at eighth bell. Vera’s presence may have had something to do with the guard’s willingness to let them in a few moments late. The weary Bathers dragged themselves home to the Adventure compound, while the prisoners were led to the temple of Order.
“Honey we’re home!” He called, as the kids and Shai tackle-hugged their wandering kin.