by Aaron Crash
“And perhaps the Princept of Old Ironbound is a slut.” Ymir laughed. His heart felt warm in his chest. It might be cold and foggy, and that damn Weeping Sea might be freezing, but up there on that arena, he felt a strong connection with this remarkable assassin turned schoolmarm.
“A Princept who is a slut?” Della held her kharo stick up above her shoulder so the smoke wouldn’t blow into her face. “I wouldn't be the first one.”
“Sarina Sia would be so proud.” Ymir paused to speak his thoughts out loud. “You with Queen Deedee, and me with Ziziva, we know the secrets of the Fayee. That does give us leverage. We won’t spill their secrets, and they won’t betray us. We all seem to want the same thing. Unger dead. Thera stable. Businesses running and making money. This alliance seems to be very fortunate.”
“So it would seem.” Della smiled. “I never thought I’d ever trust those fucking fairies. Yet here we are.”
Ymir was fine with the Fayee running their secret empire as long as they didn’t come after Ziziva for breaking their rules. If they threatened her or his baby, he would tear their empire apart.
He switched subjects. “Now, let us talk of the Flesh Steal Ring. What do you know of fertile imaginations?”
Della cocked her head, squinting at him through the smoke. “Sarina Sia herself suggested such a thing. What do you know?”
Ymir told her about the Ohlyrran poet that Enjambin Fannrilk quoted fifteen generations before Aegel Akkridor crafted his rings.
Della’s face lost all expression. “Celestia, yes. I have a book of forbidden poems in the Illuminates Spire. I never thought much about them, and I wasn’t sure why they were considered forbidden. Perhaps I missed something.”
Ymir and Della were of the same mind. They'd never been closer to unlocking the secret of the uncanny fruit.
Chapter Thirty-Six
YMIR STOOD UP FROM the long table in the Scrollery.
He stretched and heard his bones crack. He’d been sitting too long. They were in the heart of the school year, and Ymir was reading nonstop.
It had been a long four weeks since Winter Solstice, and Vempor’s Cape was besieged by January’s cold.
The dignitaries were braving the storms to come to the long-desired assemblage at the Majestrial. Various royalty and emissaries had been arriving for days now, a few here, a few there, including a delegate from the Ocean Mother Divine, a mermaid named Durba Laboon, who represented the Delphino family’s interest in the coming talks. Beryl Delphino was unable to attend, and Ribby was sad about that. Durba Laboon was a red-haired woman who listened better than she talked. That could be useful.
The final contingent, from the Swamp Coast queendoms, would be arriving the next day. Then the assemblage would start. Ymir had done his bit for the cause by showing up when the diplomats arrived, dining with the ambassadors in the evening, and taking part in various events. He’d gained some weight from the rich food, but that was easily taken care of with sparring matches with not just Gatha, but with Ribby on her island, and with Ziziva, who had not missed a single one of Gatha’s lessons.
Gatha had wanted the fairy to quit, but Ziziva hadn’t, and the she-orc was impressed with her drive and determination.
There had been no more sightings of the dragon.
Life at the school continued as normal, though one new thing was that the Appleford heirs had started attending various classes. It had taken all the dignitaries longer to get to the Majestrial than anticipated, and so the royal family’s stay had been longer than expected.
Greenhome, for example, was a long way off, on the other side of the continent, and while the new queen might’ve come with Glagga the Blade and the other orcs, the elf queen had refused. She had her own entourage, and the Gruul had theirs.
When Gatha heard, she wondered if the elf queen might be tempted to suck orc cock and didn’t trust herself not to fuck an entire legion. Thankfully, Gatha didn’t say that in earshot of Lillee. The elf girl seemed more stable, finding solace in her platonic friendship with Ziziva, but Lillee’s peace of mind was still fragile.
In the Scrollery, Ymir cast his eyes around the former dungeon. Cells were packed with scrolls. Full bookcases filled the center of the room. Sunfire torches in bronze fittings burned on the walls, while Sunfire lanterns glowed on the table.
It wasn’t a bad place to study, but he missed his spot on the second floor of the Librarium Citadel, where he could watch the raindrops trickle down the panes. The patter of the storm on the building would lull him into a peacefulness that allowed him to completely focus.
However, that wasn’t possible.
His Honored Princept didn’t want him reading the book she’d found, The Yimagania by the mad elf Celestia, at his desk on the second floor. And Della wasn’t comfortable with him taking it back to the Zoo. She couldn’t have him up in her alcove office because people would talk. He suggested he sit at her mezzanine office, but that didn’t work for her either.
The only possible solution was for Ymir to read it in the Scrollery, which he didn’t mind, though the eels moving through the water could be a bit disconcerting. And his memories of Gatha down here, reading her erotica and masturbating—that also made it hard to focus.
The book itself was the missing piece for them. Celestia used poems to hide his lore, though once you saw the patterns in his language, it was clear he was spouting forbidden magic. The poems spoke of seeds and coins, and they definitely saw the world as an arena for the Gamemaster. If you had the right seed, and the right coin, you could grow the uncanny fruit on a book the ring-forger had to write themselves. This was the important piece of the equation. It had to be the original work of the spellcaster.
Which meant Ymir had to write something, and while it could be prose, poetry worked best. And the quality of the story mattered.
Ymir, of course, grumbled about this. Gulnash must’ve done this. But how? The Betrayer was many things, but an author? It was doubtful.
Gatha, though, said that Gulnash was a master storyteller. He’d sold himself as the Betrayer who would free the Blood Steppes, and then Ymir realized that warriors were always telling tall tales of their deeds. He’d met many men who were legendary. All you had to do was ask them.
If bragging could be considered storytelling, then Ymir could brag as well as any. And he read enough poetry that he could pretend that he cared about figurative language, alliteration, assonance, literary allusions, and all those other tools of rhetoric.
And he had Lillee to help him, both Lillee and Ziziva, since both enjoyed wordplay.
Again, Ymir had to laugh at his life. He thought he would be storming the very gates of hell with forbidden magic, wielding his battle ax against a host of demons. Instead, he was running a business selling candy that made people horny and writing epic poems in an attempt to forge magic rings.
While Della had come through providing him The Yimagania, Professor Albatross and the White Rose Society had given him the components to create the Flesh Steal Ring. A dead orange chameleon, the dust of a good man’s skull, beeswax from a bad man’s hive, clay taken from a cemetery, the ashes from a funeral not a week old. The mixture—beeswax, clay, funeral ashes, and skull dust—was stuffed into the chameleon, and then there was a lost spell book that spoke of the incantation you needed to forge the Flesh Steal from there.
They didn’t have that book. However, Gulnash the Betrayer hadn’t had it either, and he’d been able to forge the Crystal Null Ring. Their current theory was that the orc bastard had found various books in the Gruul libraries that taught him how to grow the uncanny fruit. It must’ve mentioned Fannrilk’s almanac and the mad elf’s book of poems. Gulnash would’ve also found the components needed to forge the Crystal Null. He’d put the coin on his work of fiction, then put the seed on the coin. The components were then added on top of the seed. The plant would grow out of the book, the uncanny fruit would grow and ripen, and from the fruit, Gulnash had pulled his ring.
Th
ere were any number of flaws to that scenario, but in the end, the Betrayer had crafted the Crystal Null Ring.
In the four weeks since the Winter Solstice, Ymir had written two epic poems, which Lillee had transcribed into blank leather-bound books. They’d placed the seed on the coin on the cover and did a complex Form enchantment. Lastly, they’d laid the chameleon, stuffed with the components, on top of the seed. That seed grew into a plant, the roots coming out of a book that Ymir had written. They’d used Ribby’s old room in the Zoo as a greenhouse. Ymir didn’t like the idea of sleeping right next to a plant growing through the corpse of a chameleon.
The plant sprouted, grew green, grew large, and then withered and died no matter how much they watered it.
What had gone wrong?
Was it the components? They’d take Professor Albatross’s word that the beeswax came from a villain and the skull came from a saint. Ymir thought the materials were fine. He blamed his uncertain writing. He’d recounted stories from the Black Wolf Clan, tall tales of old heroes. One was a child born under the Wolf Moon who had the mark of the Wolf Moon and Bright Star on him. There was a prophecy that said the child would become chieftain. However, the then-current chief swore he wouldn’t let that happen, and he tried to kill the child. The parents outwitted him, gave him an already dead child, and put the boy in a basket and set him adrift on the tundra marshes. He was found by simple hunters, grew into a powerful warrior, and returned to the Black Wolf Clan and killed the chieftain. He became the leader and brought forth ten generations of good fortune to the clan.
That story must not have worked because the plant dried up and died.
Ymir tried again with another tale of a hero, a stranger who came to Lost Herot, looking for a clan to join. The current clan was plagued by a monster, and so the stranger killed the monster in hopes of winning the favor of the people. For a time, the stranger was accepted, until more warriors were murdered by the mother of the monster that the stranger had killed. The stranger slayed the mother, but the clan never accepted him because they were always waiting for a third demon to arrive. The stranger left them and froze to death on the tundra. It was tragic, and perhaps the spell didn’t like tragedies. That plant died as well.
It was Lillee who took him aside and told him to write something original.
Ymir thought long and hard. And then he spent a week, sleeping little, scrawling down his thoughts in Pidgin, until he had his story. It was the tale of a desperate people who were living under the lash and scowls of an ageless tyrant who had seven wives. The desperate people chose a fellowship of saviors, seven men and women from the various races— elf, dwarf, she-orc, mermaid, human, Wingkin, and even a fairy princess. The savior fellowship went to the far north, and they enlisted the help of a soulless barbarian to come and kill the tyrant.
The barbarian came with his battle brothers, and together with the savior fellowship, they laid siege to the tyrant’s castle. They murdered him, but in the fight, the barbarian’s battle brothers were all killed by a dragon that came down to defend the tyrant. In the battle, the dragon was killed, but the damage was done. And the barbarian would’ve been crowned king of the dead tyrant’s vast empire, but instead, he went back up north to mourn his battle brothers. He wanted nothing to do with the southerners, their wicked ways, or their money and power.
When he returned, the barbarian found his wife and children had been murdered by another clan. He was alone now, without brothers or family.
Ymir called it Aeric’s Sorrow, named after the main character, Aeric, an old clan name that meant “ruler of all” in an almost forgotten tongue.
Lillee read it and wept. For she knew, when Ymir described Aeric’s sorrow at losing his brothers, he was describing his own sorrow. The storybook barbarian had killed both tyrant and dragon, he was victorious, and yet he’d lost all of his family and friends, every single one of them.
Aeric would never love again.
Ymir thought the story turned out well. He hoped it would work because they only had one more seed and one more coin to try to grow their uncanny fruit. And from the fruit they hoped to pluck the Flesh Steal Ring.
If this third time failed, they would have to start over from scratch. It would be disheartening, for they’d found little information on the seventh and eighth rings.
Of course, when Della read Ymir’s latest work of fiction, she saw that he was writing a theory of who had killed the Vempor Aegel Akkridor. It was said that it was a barbarian who murdered the vempor, though his name had been lost to time.
Showing the Princept his epic poem had been strangely difficult for Ymir. He wanted her to like it. At that same time, he couldn’t give two elk shits about what she thought. All that mattered was that it worked to grow the Ventita Fructus.
Ymir closed The Yimagania and began to pack his things.
He heard the gate squeak open above him and then footsteps. He knew his wives well enough to recognize them by the sound of their walking. It was Gatha, hurrying down. She didn’t bother unlocking the second gate. She shouted through it, “Come quickly, Ymir! It’s your fairy. She’s in the Zoo, and her belly is swelling. Looks like the fucking you did weeks ago paid off.”
Ymir threw his satchel over his shoulder, but he tucked The Yimagania under an arm. Gatha unlocked the gate for him, and they sped upstairs. Ymir took the steps up to Della’s mezzanine office. The Princept was there, and she saw the concern on his face.
“What is it?” she asked from her seat.
Ymir laid the forbidden book on her desk. “It’s Ziziva. I got her pregnant, which I probably should’ve told you before. Anyway, Gatha tells me she’s in the Zoo, swelling. Not that I know what that might look like.”
The Princept narrowed her eyes. “I knew all along why Ziziva wanted to join your harem, and I think Queen Deedee knows as well. There could be problems there. However, keep track of things. You are going to be witnessing something that has been a secret for millennia. She trusts you, Ymir.”
“She trusts us,” Ymir shot back. “She had no issue with me telling my wives, so I wouldn’t think she’d mind me telling you.”
Della coughed out a laugh. “I am not one of your wives, nor do I wish to be.” Her next smile might’ve betrayed her a bit. She sobered. “I wish I could go and check on her, but no, I can’t be seen anywhere near the Zoo.” The look of dejection on Della’s face was unmistakable.
Gatha hissed up at him. “Hurry, Ymir. She wants you. She is in pain.”
Ymir nodded at Della and then turned. He took the steps two at a time, and then he and Gatha were running from the Librarium, out into the rain. They didn’t stop until they burst through the door of the Zoo.
Ymir threw his satchel onto the table and kept running.
He found Ziziva down in Ribby’s room. She lay in the far corner of the room, surrounded by pillows, blankets, flowers, and plants. All the furniture had been removed, and there were bowls and pots of water laying around. Flow magic filled the air, and there was a wet feeling in the room, humid but not hot. It was actually rather chilly.
The fairy sat against a pile of pillows in her Verum Self, naked and wingless, sweating and flushed. Even from a distance, he could feel the heat from her body. It was like she had a fever.
Tori knelt next to her with a wet washcloth, wiping at her brow and sponging sweat off the fairy’s chest and belly. Ziziva’s stomach was distended, full and ripe and round. She’d gone from having a flat tummy to being nine months pregnant in an afternoon.
She had a hand on her belly. She smiled up at him weakly. “It’s happening. I’m in the start of my glimmertime. I told Zorynda that I’ve gone home to the Sondus River District. I have to stay here, though I need water, lake, river, or ocean, but I can’t, no, I can’t leave here now that my glimmertime is here.”
Lillee, Gatha, and Jennybelle came into the room, carrying more bowls of water.
Tori smoothed Ziziva’s wild yellow hair. “I know, girl, I know. I
’ll come up with a fountain. It’s been raining so much, I could probably add a drain to the outside, maybe a deck, where you can stand in the rain.”
“The wogglesparks will need water,” Ziziva said. Then she winced as if in pain. Her hands went to her belly. “I should’ve gone to Ribby on StormLight Island. But it hit me all at once. I wouldn’t have made it. I got to the Flow Courtyard. It was Gatha that helped me get here. She carried me in my Winkle Self.”
Ymir noticed that Ziziva was too wiped out for her Winkle Tongue. He went over to her and knelt. “Now is the time where you tell us everything there is to know about your glimmertime. Is this pain normal? How long does it last? Why do you need water?”
Ziziva gulped and breathed harder. “Some things I can tell you. Others I don’t know. I’m very thirsty. Please, give me my drink, Tori. Please!”
Tori pushed Ymir back. “You let her be, Ymir. Gosh me underground, she doesn’t need to be interrogated like she’s done something wrong. We’re going to give her what she needs and not ask too many questions.”
Lille hurried forward with a cup, which she pushed against Ziziva’s lips. “Here you go, my sweetness. Here is your drink.”
Jennybelle stood with her arms crossed. She toed a bowl with her bare foot. “I have to agree with Ymir on this one. We’re gonna need to know what to expect. We can’t very well help her if we don’t know what’s going on. And if things go wrong? How will we know?”
Gatha sighed. “This fairy has troubled us from the very start. Why are we asking questions now? It doesn’t matter. She is swollen. She will have her baby. I suppose she won’t be training with me anymore.”
“No!” Ziziva wept. “I’ll train. Just not during my glimmertime, and I don’t know how long it will last. Or what the consequences might be. Might be dire. Might be dangerous. Might be fine. Might be wine. I won’t know. But the pain is in the beginning for sure. The pain, the fever, and swollen belly swelled. Then the tears. Then the laughter. Then the glimmertime ends, and the wogglesparks will come. The little baby sparkles, only most won’t be babies. Some will, though. One will, though.”