Footwizard

by Terry Mancour

  “And perhaps a very short one. Did you tell Ithalia?”

  “Ishi’s tits, no!” she said, shaking her head. “My granddaughter would have had a fit and tried to talk me out of it. You didn’t tell Alya, did you?”

  “No, of course not,” I said, looking back at my wife. “I feel . . .”

  “Try not to think about it, too much,” Lilastien advised. “You should be back by tomorrow.”

  “Will I?” I challenged.

  “Should be,” she repeated, as she began to mount her own horse. “We’ll just have to see what happens.”

  “No, I might come back. But will I come back?” I asked, anxiously.

  “You’re thinking too much,” she chided.

  “Right, right,” I conceded, as I slung my rifle across my back. “Let’s go do something profoundly foolish. You remember the way?”

  “Always,” she agreed. “But keep your rifle hot. There are predators in the forest along the way.”

  “I remember,” I nodded, and reached around to charge the weapon.

  I rode behind her and was gratified that she didn’t once turn to see if I had tried to escape. But you cannot escape Fate, usually, and in this case, it might be the only hope to save Callidore and all its folk from an ugly death.

  But when the answer to my request to take Stonetrunk’s heart from the Leshi came back from the Grandfather Tree, it had given the reasons for its unusual judgement.

  It had told the Leshi Fathers that Lilastien and I were important and should be treated with hospitality. Because there was some faint possibility that we could gain the knowledge to figure out how to save the planet once the night of the new moon came. And Lilastien could redeem the sins of her people, whatever that meant, as she assisted me in that quest. And other stuff. I tried to recall it all, while we were riding through the darkness, but I was still technically drunk, and an existential dread had begun to build in my heart.

  For the Grandfather Tree had mentioned death; madness and death.

  Mine.

  I had pondered the matter for days. I weighed the dire prediction of doom with the faint glimmer of hope that I could do the hopeless. If the cost of saving the world was my madness and death, then how could I consider that anything but a bargain, in the balance?

  It was what wizards do, after all.

  I would gladly die to preserve my children, my wife, my lands, and my people, I reasoned. I was trained to kill, and I had spent a third of my life doing just that.

  How, then, could I eschew the opportunity to extend that protection to all of Callidore? That was inclusive of my loved ones.

  So I couldn’t very well say that I was being entirely against my nature, here. I was willing to die, in a worthy cause. I was willing to kill, when I had need to. And the prospect of madness did not seem daunting when the specter of death was near.

  The problem was that Lilastien was correct: the Met Sakinsa had predicted that I would gain the knowledge to save the world, and I couldn’t do that if I was dead.

  You see why I hate prophecy?

  “You’re thinking too much,” Lilastien complained, after nearly half an hour of silence on the trail. “Stop it.”

  “We taught the dragon how to sing, today,” I said, as I struggled out of my drunken reverie. “She’d never tried before.”

  “Really?” Lilastien asked, surprised. I could feel her smirk in the darkness. “How did it sound?”

  I considered. “A little like ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo,’” I decided. “A very little. But it was interesting.”

  “This entire trip has been interesting,” she agreed. “I wish I could spend more time here, just a decade or so, to take some real notes. There are a dozen lectures in Anghysbel.”

  “Who would listen? I thought your credentials were removed when you were imprisoned.”

  “Alka Alon society doesn’t quite work that way,” she said. “And it wouldn’t be for credit. It would be for the pure pursuit of science and learning.”

  “Ah, what price for knowledge?” I asked, a little bitterly.

  “It appears we’re about to find out,” she said, as we approached the first of the Sentry Trees. There was a shadow looming there, under a great tree, a man-sized shadow.

  Alon-sized, I corrected myself, as it moved forward toward our horses. Suddenly, the tree behind it produced a glow in its branches, and a faint splash of light illuminated the figure.

  “You have come,” Davachan noted, simply. He was still dressed in his nondescript black robe, with his cowl pulled up over his head.

  “It was time,” Lilastien said with a shrug.

  “You are ready and willing to indulge my master’s offer?” Davachan asked.

  “I am willing,” I sighed. “Ready might be overstating it. But I’m here, I’m just drunk enough, and it seems a shame to waste the trip.”

  “We have been expecting you, animals,” Bomoadua’s voice said, from the tree. Which was Bomoadua, I realized. Which I should have expected, as she had heard the Grandfather Tree’s prophecy, too. I really was drunk. “We will escort you to the edge of the grove. Davachan will lead you from there.”

  “You trust him?” I asked, suspiciously.

  “He has leave to walk the grove unimpeded,” she answered. “The Leshi have known about his master since we came here. We do not interfere with the servants of Szal the Yith by long tradition. Nor have the Yith and his minions ever interfered with the Leshi.”

  “But do you trust him?” I repeated. Her endorsement seemed important.

  “We trust him not to betray his master. And his master means you no harm. That does not mean no harm will befall you.”

  “I know,” I sighed. “I spoke to Rolof about it.”

  “Rolof sought the answers to his questions,” Davachan said, darkly. “He got them. He had foolish questions. For what you face, Minalan the Spellmonger, be sure that you ask the right questions,” the Karshak warned in his gravelly voice. “My master’s power is not to be taken lightly.”

  “We are ready and willing,” Lilastien told him, impatiently, as we dismounted. “If it means preserving Callidore, we are willing to do what must be done. No matter the cost.”

  “Very well,” Davachan said, and turned toward the grove.

  I had the sudden feeling we were making a grave mistake, and our host’s demeanor did nothing to dispel that. “Follow me, and we will begin your descent into madness.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Servants of Szal

  I do not want to speak of my time in the Crypt of Szal the Yith. The memory of the place is dark, and the company of his servants was unnerving.

  from the Expedition Book of Anghysbel,

  Recorded by Minalan the Spellmonger

  Our journey through the Leshwood by night proved creepy as hell.

  I like trees, don’t mistake me. I like the Leshi, in particular. But on a misty, moonless night the swaying branches and hanging moss seemed to conspire to ignite my drunken imagination in unpleasant ways. The shadows that loomed and the noises that sounded unexpectedly in the darkness sent shivers up my spine, instead of delight at the novel environment. In daylight, the Leshwood was a strange, wondrous, merry place; at night it was a living jungle of dread to my mammalian soul.

  I heard a tree snoring. Bomoadua explained that it wasn’t asleep, exactly, but it was in a deep, regenerative nocturnal state wherein it could process the energies collected that day through specialized respiratory organelles on their branches. It sounded an awful lot like sleep, to me, and the respiration sounded just like my father snoring after a tavern bender, but I’m sure there was some important difference I wasn’t picking up on.

  Bomoadua led the way with her tiny lantern that seemed to cast just enough soft light to keep me from tripping over my feet with Davachan skulking behind her. Soon we crossed the moot meadow, where several Leshi were respirating peacefully, and before I was prepared for it, we were walking through the more militant po
rtion of the grove. If the first portion of the forest was creepy, the thorny expanse that led to the stony wastes was terrifying.

  “I should have brought more rum,” I muttered, taking a restorative sip from my gourd as something – a spiky-looking vine – slithered across the path. I repressed the desire to reach for my sword. “And more ammunition.”

  “No harm will befall you here,” the Lesh assured me. “All hospitality will be extended to you, including safe passage. The Grandfather Tree wills it,” she said, simply, kicking a bush out of the way.

  “I cannot make the same pledge, alas,” Davachan said. “You are a fool for doing this. But I have seen many fools take this journey since I came to my master’s service.”

  “You really aren’t helping,” Lilastien griped at him.

  “You aren’t in a position to be helped,” Davachan replied, unmoved. “If you knew what you were agreeing to, you would ask me to slay you here and now and spare you your fate.”

  “How long will this take?” I asked, purposefully trying to irritate the beardless Karshak. “My wife is waiting for me.”

  “Not long,” he offered. “And years uncounted. You will not return the same man you left as.”

  “My wife might not mind that,” I quipped.

  We continued in silence until, at last, we came to the very edge of the grove. The darkness of the stony wastes of the Cursed Vale stretched out before us. We saw naught but the mists that clung to the stones.

  “This is as far as I may go,” Bomoadua said, apologetically, as we reached the gate that descended to the wastes. “Davachan must take you the rest of the way. Good luck,” she offered.

  “Thanks,” I sighed, as I looked out into the darkness, trying to steel myself. “I hope your Grandfather Tree was right. Or wrong. Or . . . mistaken,” I said. An unyielding feeling of dread seemed to beckon from the darkness. It wasn’t the terror of being attacked – though that was certainly a possibility – it was the existential dread that seemed represented by the misty void ahead. Through that way was death and madness I knew. And answers that could save the world.

  “This is your last opportunity to turn back,” warned Davachan. “If you go farther, you are committed.”

  It took every fiber of my being not to sprint back to the moot meadow.

  “I am ready,” Lilastien agreed.

  “I am committed,” I told him, instead. “Trygg’s grace be on me.”

  “There are no gods here, Spellmonger,” Davachan said, shaking his head. “Beyond the mists lie the Kurja spawn, and their brood mother in her deep warren. They see neither day nor night and roam the waste to feed their eternal hunger. The tunnel that leads to my master’s mansion is up there,” he said, pointing. “No god would dare tread near either place, even if they could. Your path lies between the unholy and the uncaring,” he said, and began to walk into the mists.

  I took one last deep breath before I followed him. Taking that step might have been the bravest thing I’ve ever done.

  The stones my boots crunched across seemed more jagged and rough as we trudged through the misty silence, as if they were trying to catch my feet and keep me from going forward. Lilastien was stumbling too, ahead of me. Only Davachan seemed to glide across the rough country, though there was no light to guide his way. He appeared to be moving through sheer determination. I found that annoying.

  I don’t know how long we stumbled through the darkness. The mists and the deafening silence seemed oppressive, and the lack of orientation made my head whirl as I trudged forward. Just when I thought I would be trudging through the dark forever, an overwhelming stench began to haunt my nostrils.

  Part of it was sickeningly familiar: Sulphur. It lingered in the air so thickly I could taste it on my dry tongue. But the other odor was worse. A thick pall of putrescence overcame the smell of Sulphur, like a damp blanket of rot and decay.

  The source was soon evident. The corpse of the Kurja spawn we had slain was still where we’d left it, next to Stonetrunk’s opened body. A few days’ time had allowed the massive maggot to itself become the home and meal to scavengers. As we drew closer, the faintest starlight above gave just enough illumination for me to witness the rotting skin of the bloated mass writhing with thousands of unknown creatures who were devouring the corpse from the inside.

  On its surface, particularly where the wounds we’d inflicted gaped open, insects the size of turkeys, and other scavengers unknown to me, skittered across the pale white membrane and devoured the exposed rotting flesh below. They took notice, when we approached, their heads lifting and their multifaceted eyes peering into the darkness. But they resumed their macabre feast a moment later, unconcerned about our interference.

  “Sorry about the mess,” I said, repressing the desire to vomit with another swallow of beet rum.

  “It happens frequently,” dismissed Davachan, as we shuffled by the great corpse in the darkness. “In another day or two, one of its mates will arrive to consume the insects it attracts. Then it will eat the corpse. They have no bones, so there will be little reminder of it by the full moon.”

  “How tidy,” Lilastien said, shuddering as we passed.

  “Don’t you worry about those things getting into your cave?” I asked, trying very hard to forget about the horrific sight I just witnessed.

  “We have defenses,” Davachan assured. “And the Kurja spawn are poor climbers, in this form.”

  “In this form?” I asked. I had to.

  “If they were allowed to proceed into the rest of the world, the Magosphere would allow them to become their second-phase form, similar to an insect.”

  “An insect thirty feet long?” I asked, appalled.

  “Only twenty, to begin with,” Davachan informed us. “That’s when it begins to grow intelligence. In a few years, one would have the intelligence of an Alon. And poisonous fangs. By the time it is ready for its third and final transformation, it is fiendishly intelligent.”

  “What is its third form?” Lilastien asked.

  “Let us not discuss such an unpleasant thing,” Davachan said, diplomatically, over his shoulder. “Each could become another brood mother, only armed with terrible magic. They would not cease their efforts to release the Formless. Such a thing would be a disaster. The Leshi do a service to this world by maintaining their guardianship over that cavern.”

  We continued to trudge up the increasingly steep path, every step taking us away from the horrific stench. The switchback we followed rose over three hundred feet from the valley floor up a steep incline. Soon we were able to make out a spot of inky blackness in the misty gloom, a gash in the side of the mountain that was difficult to see until you got close. There was a long, narrow ledge that thickened to several feet across the bottom of the entrance. A dark shadow seemed to hover on the thickest portion of the ledge.

  “What’s that?” I asked, peering drunkenly ahead.

  “That?” Davachan asked. “That’s Gesstesseth. Another of Szal’s servants. He’s keeping watch for Kurja for us.”

  As we came closer, I began to see details of the man – and realized he was no man, nor Alon.

  Instead, two large, round, black, unblinking eyes peered out at us from under a black robe like Davachan’s. Its eyes were three inches wide and unnerving. They were set in a slightly pointed face devoid of a nose and covered in scales. He bore a stout staff in his scaly, three-fingered claws.

  “He’s not an Alon,” Lilastien noted. “He’s a lizard man!”

  “Yes, he’s from the tribe of primitive tessalassa, in the western swamp. Sometimes known variously as the Ava Carum, luachra, sli’istaki, or the casameraska by the Alon. But they originally call themselves tessalassa. Gesstesseth was delivered to Szal’s service by his tribe a few centuries ago for some unspeakable crime he committed.”

  “Worse than yours?” Lilastien asked.

  “Who is to say?” Davachan answered, gloomily. “We are all guilty of something, aren’t we, Gesstesseth?�
� he asked.

  “Hissssssssss!” the lizard man said.

  “Of course you are. Our guests are ready for their interrogation,” he informed his fellow.

  “Hissssssssss!” Gesstesseth answered.

  “Perhaps afterwards,” agreed Davachan. “Let us see what transpires. Come,” he urged us, as we made it to the ledge. “The sooner started, the sooner you may start to recover.”

  “What was he asking about?” Lilastien inquired, glancing at the lizard man, who fell in behind me.

  “Food,” Davachan supplied, as he plunged into the inky darkness of the tunnel. “He’s hungry. He wanted to know if he could eat your bodies if you didn’t survive.”

  “He eats human flesh?” I asked, glancing back at the menacing figure directly behind me.

  “He eats just about any kind of flesh. Apparently, that was part of what got him condemned to Szal’s service. That’s too long a story to tell. Fear not; you will come to no harm. Gesstesseth is no murderer. But if you are no longer using your bodies, when the interrogation is complete, he might enjoy a proper meal for a change.”

  “Will you be joining him?” I asked, trying not to panic.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” Davachan assured.

  I quietly considered that grisly thought as we plunged down the pitch-dark tunnel that led from the surface. I do mean dark. And I do mean down. The tunnel descended in a nearly straight line at a steep angle, and the darkness was so complete I could have been blind. A few hundred yards down, Davachan stopped in an alcove and lit a torch with some device I was not familiar with. Suddenly flickering shadows painted the rough walls of the tunnel, mocking our presence.

  “It will be easier, from here,” Davachan told us, as he continued forward. And down.

  Though the torch gave me enough light to keep from tripping over my own feet, it did little to improve the décor or atmosphere of the place. It grew even more oppressive as we went. No feature or decoration was apparent, yet it was more foreboding than the dungeons of Olum Seheri. There were turns as we descended, and twice we came to forks in the tunnel. The air grew stuffier the deeper into the mountain we went.