…..:::::|. Silent Cloud Burrow .|:::::…..
Dulcet tones, long and drawn to their gossamer ends decorated the busted-open entrance of the stone garden mausoleum. A bright metal hammer the size of a teenager sat there beside the assailed tomb’s entrance, malicious in its pulsing jade glow. It had been a revered grave-site for the fox-folk and Speculah entombed here, before foreigners moved into the cloud-laden city below. Now half the statues and tombs had been broken open or desecrated.
The one who'd broken this new tomb open sat strumming merrily inside the grave.
Even as the pair he had hired, yet were disgusted with, returned, his long sculpted deep honey and grey fingers plucked lightly at the chords of his song. Unnamed, it had gone, but he was roving the morbid scene with his eyes; for a title was sure to emerge amongst all the players here.
Two other men of no worth taunted and jeered another man crouched near this one's immaculate healed boots.
The one on the ground was dressed in nothing recognizable of any nation, save the colours he chose. A bit of orange and a dash of purple here and there, signaled his hailing to the one strumming out this new song. Hagoniel, this crouched man was. Born of the wolf-folk who had a higher propensity for magecraft than the other wolf dens. And he was performing this very act, magecraft, now in this foxen father's grave-site; albeit tenuous and slow.
This scene was tiresome in more ways than could be rightly counted but it was a necessary trek and task for the music-player's work.
The bearish others stomping about the foxfolk's burial grounds were indeed far too loud for his patience but he trained a focus on the one crouching and silently working his craft.
"Can't believe you gave it to'em." A scraggly man with unkept red hairs scolded his buddy as they headed toward the busted open gates of the mausoleum. Their stride was a faster than normal pace as one of them seemed visibly unnerved by all the fox statuettes and grave markers. Each of them were old, mossed-over, and broken but in the bellies of the foxes was set some sort of geode or cut gem. From all the reports they'd heard, they knew better not to dig them out. No matter how much they were worth. They passed around several more of those stone statues and gemstone shards.
"Haddoo, them Jyr mages woulda blasted me head off if idda kept that candle." This one was holding his arm, still bloody from their trek up out of the mist-choked town below.
"What, all that over a candle? What's it got, spirits in it?" The first one uttered, a flash of something furry scurrying past his peripheral. He jumped in fright, realizing why only Buraam or Speculah would keep festival up here. Nothing here was for a regular man. Only stone figures and tombs. Some, the carvings of animals, some the shapes of warriors, some only the raw ore geode pulled from wherever they'd first been and placed here for remembrance.
"You mean like the ones here." The second one, closer to the entrance now, passed some more statues foxen in shape with skin smoother than all the metals he'd ever touched. They were light, thin and angular in cut. No blacksmith he knew of could have crafted edges so straight or metals so smooth, but the world didn't know much of how the Buraam crafted anything. Their tinker-houses were whole fortresses of mystery.. "I hate dead places. Give me the willies." The last they passed was a fox statue holding a drawn bow with no arrow toward the shattered entrance they approached. "And I hate dem fox-creeps more."
The redheaded man acknowledged it with a wave and continued on inside. "I don't like it here neither they're all looking at me."
"They're all looking at everything up here on this hill."
The two having entered into the scene of the broken open tomb were loud and garish and barbaric in tone and the honey-grey one's prismatic eyes slid up to them to quiet their uncouth ramblings. The two new men, quietly squeezed themselves into the oddly lit scene and lowered their conversation to inquire of the other two who'd been standing watch. They simply shifted over, not attempting to scuff the immaculate boots of the one strumming.
One of them, a dark haired young man, harder in the face than he should have been at his age, was brushing a feather along his chin.
"How long's this take?" The redheaded brute huffed.
"Hours." The crouching man smoothed, fingers just slightly flexing.
The bloody one, holding his arm, wriggled in his already bothered anticipation. "I ain't got the pachs in me to wait fer--"
"You do and you will." The air inside this stony crypt quaked with his utterance. At once all their eyes grew large and their mouths shut.
Before them, on top of a sarcophagus, grew a dead looking tree, whose roots dug into and around the stone below and all across the alcove at its rear. In the belly of this small tree sat a spilling cluster of glowing crystals, blueish-green in colour and pulsing to the melody of the one strumming.
The crouched one had done this task many times, and his complicated contraption was spread all about the sides of him at its center. He'd seemed so used to all the gadgetry surrounding him that the impossible strung-system seemed an extension of his own skin. Needles of varying sizes and types had all been inserted into the bark of the tree and crystals and stone sarcophagus. From the needles stretch extremely taut strings of silver filament, almost unnoticeably vibrating, backward to the rigs and gauges encircling each of his fingers.
They watched him softly slowly bend and flex individual fingers to siphon out what looked to be various particles traveling inside the hair's thick filament into various tubes and vials arranged neatly at his sides. The liquid in the tubes and vials changed colour depending on which particles hit them and there was at first a rainbow of colour in them then they all eventually settled to a sick blueish green. The whole act seemed odd, to the lot watching, and a slight gross.
As if he were extracting elements from a dead man.
Their silence lasted only a few moments, though, before a bearded man uttered a squeak.
"Oo, who's the feather?"
"None, yet, gonna give it to my lady down in the mists." The un-handsome dark haired man mused.
"He ain't got no lady. He's too ugly. He's giving it to a sasher." The redheaded man pursed.
The strumming one thought the entire lot of them were far from attractive but he, himself, was of a beauty unmatched.
"Oh, I'm sure sashers got plenty of those." The bearded one nodded.
Again their eyes slid to the one strumming to find them peering a prismatic glare upon them, harshly. He seemed perturbed by the topic.
The bloody one warned, still holding his gashed arm together. "I hear you mistreat one, hang'er out a window or don't give her her coin, you'll lose your--"
"Ugh, my sister said that to me to one time. Ain't been to a nighthouse, yet." The redheaded one said.
"Aw, you can't be that scared?" The bearded one pursed.
"He should be." The lines and astral courses in the skin of the one who'd been strumming all lit to glowing when he spoke and died back down to a low pulse as they'd always done.
They all silenced themselves again. He was indeed odd. They'd all met him in the misty city below; a hooded figure decked in black and grey robes, skin pulsing with charts of the stars etched into him as if some sky-watcher had taken him for a sick twisted experiment. But his eyes were what scared them into taking the contract. They were a prism of every colour in existence. Shifting and changing as if all the light from any source caused them to turn hue. He'd have been handsome to a woman if she could get passed all the jade charts in his skin and ghastly eyes.
The lot of men all peeled their gazes away from him to scan nothing important; anything to not have to look into his glare.
"How long's he been at it." The bloodied one of the group muttered.
"Hours." The prism-eyed one and the crouching man stated.
They all let out a collective sigh.
"Why's he bleedin'?" The burly one struck.
"Got caught below running from them Villa Magi, ran smack into a sign post." The redhead man tilted a head toward the one bleeding and they shrugged.
"Mists too thick?" The big one said, laughing.
"Bugger off!" The bleeding one yelped. "Dunno why they got signs down there anyway. Nobody can see anything." He checked himself to see how bad his wound was, made a face, covered it again, and continued his scowl. "Them Villa twanks ought to keep their squabbles with them Jyr dusters to themselves. Stop involving honest, hard working men like us."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"There's nothing honest or hard-working about what you do." The prism-eyed one stated plainly. His voice was not kind sounding in the least. He struck a particularly nice chord and glanced to the man down there finely guiding all the silver strings of his extraction tools.
Another chord struck a pretty melody for him and he hummed. This scene was offering some form of inspiration, it seemed.
"Any news on the ground down there...lost in the mists?" The ugly one was bored beyond belief and needed to spark a new topic.
"What hear them Actus Agents is looking for some more dumb-bloods to join their party." The redhead answered.
"I dunno iffin' I'd call'em dumb. I seen one take a man's head off with his eyes." The bloody one interjected.
"His eyes?!" The burly man folded his arms and crossed his ankles in utter disbelief. "Yaanmuncher, that's impossible."
"Were their shards of glass at his feet where his head lay?" The prism-eyed one sang out. His voice was eerie like it always rang from a hallway.
"How'd you know?" The one holding his arm straightened up as if that had been the first time anyone had ever believed him.
The impossibly beautiful one scoffed.
"Oh, you fought one?" the redhead asked.
He scoffed again "Plenty."
The burly one squinted and made inquiry, "Has that big one...the VVarRaven or whatever you hang with...has he fought'em too?"
"And killed them." a pleasant strum of memory rung from his delicate touch. "With ease." His large arms took a long gliss up the length of his instrument as if it were the body of his lover.
The instrument too was of a type this lot had never laid eyes on before. Many strings attached and laid on bridges adhered atop a long ornate plank of reddish brown wood, gleaming with lacquer and coursed with mother of pearl filigree in its body. They’d not asked him how he could carry such a thing around or where he'd even got it. That, they thought, would have gotten their heads knocked off by that humongous hammer he ported.
"Whuh, your type ar--your type are something else." The ugly one with the feather pointed hesitantly.
"Something else...entirely." He smirked and turned his eye to the man on the ground still slowly flexing fingers to pull more of those particles from the tree and crystal cluster.
However, this strangely beautiful honey-grey man was growing impatient and a perturbed pluck soured the note he strummed. He calmed himself once more. "Your filament is as taut as these chords. I'm certain song can ring from them just the same."
"I was taught that, yes." The one pulling elements from the tree and crystal opened; he clearly loved what he did for a living, but was openly nettled with having to do it in front of all these onlookers...and present evil. "Pulling is a type of art." He went on. "A duet in chorus with another life-form." One of his strings vibrated and he answered its rhythm with his own finger vibrating to pull a loaded cluster of particles along the stretch of his contraption. "Just as the primeval materials we used to craft our wears in primal days bygone, so does the Puller heed his song with the living. Careful, sure, true, and loving." The crouched man ended.
"Well crafted words." The pretty melody that rang from the strumming one's fingers caused even his lips to spread a grin and those four ruffians caught glimpse of the snake-like fangs in his mouth.
They reeled, almost unnoticeably.
"Sure do talk funny." The bloodied one was beginning to slouch from unease into himself.
"Education has its benefits." The crouched mage bit.
The burly one kicked him hard. "Every Puller as slow as you?"
Ever mindful of his work, the puller on the ground held out his arms as to not disturb his own extraction even from the kick administered to his spine, but his violet eyes had turned backward to them in disgust. "This extraction is of a higher risk than most!"
"Why, cuz the spirits in this grave'll come eat ya?" The ugly one with the feather quipped.
"Spirits don't eat things." The redhead corrected.
"Zhuer do." A lick of something meaty curled back under the strangely beautiful one's black and grey robes and the redheaded one could have sworn it had been a tail.
"Everything eats something." The man on the ground rolled his eyes, hating everything about this kidnapping.
One of them kicked him, again. "You're a cross one." He uttered in spite. "Me thought you fine mages were a patient type."
"I’m not a fine mage, I'm a son of Ashok."
"Ah, dem wolf-spirits.” He spit on his back.
The prismed-eyes of the one strumming instantly burned away the disgusting lob with his thoughts and cut hate-filled eyes up to these four.
“Their women bite when ya pound them." The redheaded man made a grimace in repulsion.
"Whuh, do they?" The feather-holding ruffian's face jut forward as if he'd never heard such.
"Me cousin ravished one and nearly lost his neck-blood." The redhead added.
"Caw, that ain't right." The bloody one recoiled.
"I'll stick to my fat-bottomed Isam girls and Walkers. They got normal teeth." The burly one shook his head and turned his course attention back to the man on the ground, flicking fingers. "You're a funny colour for a wolf. I thought them types was all red in the skin."
"My mother was a Solemner. My father was an Ashok Agent."
"Oooh, so you're only half a wolf."
"He’s still likely all bite." The prism-eyed one cut in. "The man is trying to work and I can’t practice with your insipid yammering going on."
They hushed once more at the call of his bell-ringing voice.
He sang a note and recited a line to himself as he gazed upon the crouched mage working. He settled into his recall and nodded to the crystals glowing brighter. Lyrics were coming to him now.
The man pulling watched as the notes sung seemed to relax the tree and crystal marriage. But he, of course, knew who this beautiful one was and knew the heritage in his immortal blood.
The Speculah had been among the first to map the lay of elements within Dureyr. They were her nature so they knew best what the planet was made of. Others like the Jemedh and the Giants taught the world smelting and crafting; leading to the discovery of other more pure forms of Dureyr's ores. But these stones, ores, and elements all laid across these burrow grounds, like gems on a table, were her history of Speculah discovery. Even though he'd been dragged up here against his will by this loathsome immortal fae, he'd been glad he had seen this place.
One of them kicked a rock, "So, how’s that work? Your daddy plough your mum and she what gave ya dem eyes."
“That's normally how DNA works." The puller answered, irritation thick in his tone.
"Dee—In--whuh?" One of them tried to repeat.
A note strung odd, a hum followed, and the Puller glanced up at the distracted beautiful one.
They shared a knowing, almost seductive, look.
The puller snatched his gaze away.
The pleased one hummed again, a particular pleasure to his time spent amongst a keen-minded creature. He half respected this Puller.
Knowing he'd needed to end this extraction for his own sanity’s sake, the mage pulling began to craft a melody, himself, in concert with the chords and notes being strummed.
"Hm, so song is apart of this Pull?" The prism-eyed one mused in a foreign singing, almost hissing, tone. "Refreshing." He let the Puller sing a little. "Now I have a title." He strummed in concert. "Five Little Dead Men, Pull No Lies."
The Puller scoffed. "Some skáld in your brothels' going be singing that soon."
"Assuredly." The pleased one making music lifted a bemused set of eyebrows.
The others were sorely confused as these two had not been speaking in their common tongue.
"What's that talk you talking?" The redhead one's eyebrows curled upward in almost fright.
"Ammol. An alluvium language. The Scour-talk of Dureyr. The language of the Zhuer." The puller angrily educated. He sighed knowing nothing he repeated was going to enlighten them any further but he went on to explain what he was in-fact doing. "This is a Zhuer crystal system growing in this tree." They all made a nodding motion half-understanding his explanation. "Ammol sings to it and the tree in the proper wavelength so I can pull the extraction without harming their symbiosis."
Their mouths were all agape and faces twisted in flat confusion.
"What. In. All. Dureyr. Are you on about?" The bloodied one uttered.
The beautiful man again shown sharp fangs in his smile and hummed a pleased sigh. "You studied with the Wild Kingdoms, didn't you?"
"I studied under Taphsel." The Puller corrected sharply as he untapped filled vials. "He studied with the Jemedh."
The beautiful one moaned in understanding. "Ah...then he would be terribly disappoi--"
"Here!" The crouched man, whose actual height was a sudden surprise to the four standing, shoved a cluster of vials into the face of the prism-eyed one. "Here's your wretched Pull! Am I free to go?!"
"For now...Strider." The seated strummer tilted off, uncaring. "But should you--" His eyes flashed squarely to the Puller.
"Yeah, Yeah, I know..." He bit back, expertly wrestling all his syringes and filaments and tools free of this accursed desecration.
He then stormed out between the ruffians and walked off into the burrow.
"Where are you going?!" The redhead one hollered after him. The others made to move while the beautiful one tucked vial after vial into his robes.
"The Puller is far more skilled than you, but he won't run." With a swipe of his palm over the whole of his instrument, it vanished as if it had never been there. "So your job is easy." He rose to his own full height and the others were again reminded of how tall and looming this man was. The hammer outside wiggled and, in a thunderous shot across their gaze, settled itself against his back. "Just make sure no one takes his head." He said as they slowly, fearfully, filed out after the Puller. "I’m going to babysit my brother." He said dusting himself and stretching his shoulders a bit.
He was flashing away in a peculiar streak of black lightning, dust, and blood droplets before they'd had time enough to inquire of him.
The last two looked at one another in confusion.
"He has a brother?"