by Daniel Kozuh
****
They all slept past dinner and through the night. The next morning, they cleaned up their campsite and headed out of the swamp. Everyone but Rick seemed to have been bitten by mosquitoes throughout the night. Their walk was slowed by having to stop and itch the swollen red welts on their exposed skin. After a while, Rick tried his hand salve on the others' bites and they found it was a rather potent anti-itch remedy.
Around noon, they found a derelict, abandoned mill, next to a fledgling creek, and Norman ran to the rusty pump to fill a trough of water for a bath. Everyone took their turns washing the sewer from their skin.
A slimy furrow of dirt was left behind after Pasha bathed, holding The Verisimillion above her head to keep it dry. Pasha politely gathered everyone’s overclothes and scrubbed them with an improvised washboard, made of a broken, rugged cog she had found inside the mill.
While the clothes dried, with her foot touching the cursed book, Pasha used her machete to slice off her dirty, matted hair; leaving her with a spiky, inch-long boy cut. Norman watched, drying himself in the sun. He saw that Pasha wasn’t nearly as old as the filth made her seem. Her skin was worn with abuse, but there was a youthfulness under the dirt.
Later, when bodies and clothes were dry, everyone relaxed. Tahra and Rick sharpened their stolen swords together, away from the other. Roe, Norman, and Pasha sunbathed in the soft grass.
Norman sat up, “I think we should stay here the night, to regain our energy before tackling The Black Cloud. We can set out early tomorrow.”
“Do we have to leave tomorrow?” Roe asked, letting out a deep sigh. He put his arms behind his head. “I wish we could just do this forever. I wish there was no cloud, no Wrence, no monsters. I don’t want riches or renown, I just wish for blue sky and a gentle breeze.”
Pasha murmured to herself. Nobody really took notice.
“Could you write that as your next Lingeria story, Norman?” Roe jokingly asked. “Just a story about a lazy summer afternoon, when nothing happens. Perhaps I could smoke a pipe, go fishing, bake a loaf of bread ....”
“You got it, pal.” Norman smiled.
Pasha’s nonsense grew louder, “Wshsss, wsshsss, wshssss,” it sounded like.
“You okay over there, Pasha?” Norman asked.
Pasha sat up in the grass, her blazing blue eyes wide with revelation. “It’s a wish,” she exclaimed!
“What?” Norman sat up as well.
“Think about it. All Lawrence wanted was to escape the life he was living, and where better to escape into than his favorite book?! Then, even though I was the one to say the spell, Wrence gained magical powers … something he always wished he had. Then, he wanted his favorite author to join him in his fantasyland and here you are! The Verisimillion is granting his wishes! I’d bet anything on it.”
“Jesus, she’s right!” Norman thought.
Pasha stood up and started to pace about in the tall grass, like an eccentric mathematician trying to solve an equation. “We know that Wrence, The Pitch Black, and The Verisimillion are all interwoven. But how? Why?”
Everyone else looked at one another, uselessly.
“Energy!” she snapped.
“Energy?” Roe asked.
Pasha picked up a large stone from the ground. She put it in her palm and held her arm outstretched. “Imagine this rock is our reality. It takes an immense amount of energy to keep it held where it is. The longer I hold it,” Pasha’s arm shook, “the harder it is for me to keep it aloft.” She dropped the rock. “The Pitch Black is feeding Wrence’s wishes, keeping them alive. It has to suck the energy out of everything around it to keep his fantasy thriving. And life is energy.”
“So … I didn’t create this world?” Norman asked.
“Nope,” Pasha said.
“Really?” Tahra glared at Norman. “That is what you are taking away from this? Something about yourself?”
“I was just clarifying her point,” Norman defended.
“Wait, I’m confused,” Roe said. “Are we going with The Pitch Black now or The Black Cloud?”
Pasha pushed past the bickering, “I created The Pitch Black with a spell from The Verisimillion, but without the physical book. As we know, the book itself contains great power. My thinking is that, if we return The Verisimillion to The Pitch Black, we may be able to stop the destruction and, perhaps, even send that damn cloud back from where it came.”
“We actually have to go towards the thing we’ve been running from?” asked Rick.
“Yep!” Pasha said.
Then Tahra asked, “How will we find it?”
Pasha patted the book she was holding. “This has given me more than just my optical sight back. I can see The Pitch Black, in my mind. It is pulling at the book, calling it home.”
Norman thought for a moment. “Aren’t we risking making The Black Cloud, and thereby Wrence, more powerful, if we return the book?”
“Once we return the book, The Pitch Black can be controlled and even dispelled,” Pasha said, with certainty. “Right now, it is a horse – untamed and wild – but once we bridle it, we can undo the damage it has done. I believe if we destroy The Verisimillion, once it has connected with The Pitch Black, everything should be undone.”
“Are you sure about any of this?” Tahra asked.
“Three-to-one,” Pasha replied.
Norman stood up and brushed the grass from his jeans. “I’ll take that bet.”
Supplies were gathered and most of the travelers were ready to leave.
“But …” Roe spoke up, in a small voice. Everyone turned and looked at him, standing by the dead mill. He looked tinier and meeker than ever, his brow curled into a worry. “Let’s say all that happens. We destroy the cloud and undo everything Wrence has done. Didn’t you say that Wrence’s wish was for Lingeria exist in the first place? What happens to us, then, if we reverse it?”
An uncomfortable silence swept over the team.
“Um …” Norman was at a loss. “Let’s just start walking.”
FOURTEEN
Duergar had broken the tablet and, with it, his inheritance. This felt like death to him. He saw no future without the kingdom that was promised.
Alone in his bedchamber, he used his sharpest battle-axe to shave the nearly floor-length beard from his face. His cheeks were now so smooth he resembled himself from almost fifty years before.
Duergar hoped he could find a town of men and blend in with them – just another short, stocky, unskilled roustabout, only seeking enough money for a pie and a pint. It might work. And if it didn’t? He’d have to toss himself into the Kar-Par Canyon.
Little did Duergar realize that what felt like his end was actually only the beginning.
- Tales of Lingeria: The Mastaba Tablet, Chapter 12
Ironically, Pasha found it easier to close her eyes and feel the pull of the book to guide their journey like a diving rod. They headed further west, the gentle grass giving way to dry, scarce savannah. Herds of beige Gazelle-like quadrupeds – with enormous swirling horns and vertical stripes of black-and-white down their spines – grazed by the thousands, which meant that predators surely lurked nearby as well.
They traveled for five days, with no sign of The Black Cloud or its ravages. When not guiding them, Pasha would sit by the fire, reading The Verisimillion and trying to decode its obtuse verses. No one slept well, all of them troubled by dreams filled with guilt and anxiety.
While meat was plentiful, fresh water was becoming infrequent. Around noon, on the fifth day, they came across an oasis of olive trees, which thrived off a small pond at their center. The tired travelers took a break to drink and wash the dust away.
Apart from animals, they had not encountered a soul. In fact, they went so long without seeing an intelligent creature that both Rick and Tahra let their guards down. They didn’t see the ambush coming.
From behind a mound of red dirt, a pack of warriors attacked, tearing through the olive trees and subdui
ng the team in seconds.
Tahra was cupping handfuls of water into her mouth when she was kicked hard in the ribs. She fell on her back. A figure, obscured by the sun, stood over her, with a rustic spear in their hand and their foot on her chest.
“Do not move, woman! I will not hesitate to kill you,” the attacker said.
Tahra recognized the accent, and the condescending machismo attitude. She gripped the figure’s foot and twisted it hard. Her enemy fell to the ground, ankle broken. Tahra grabbed the spear and put it to the man’s throat.
“Tahra?” came a voice. An aged man was looking forlornly at her. He had swirling, pictograph tattoos, which covered most of his body. His sandal was pressing down on Norman’s cheek.
“Father,” she answered, with no emotion, as if addressing a sergeant.
“Can it be, my daughter has returned?” the old man asked. He took his foot off Norman and walked to his offspring reappeared. Tahra released her assailant and stood, awaiting her father. The old man spread his arms open in harmonious reunion.
Tahra swiftly broke his nose.
“I saw that one coming,” Norman said, to an anonymous Marked Tribesman.
****
Tahra’s father took the broken nose in his stride – it wasn’t his first. In addition, he was impressed by her strength. He casually snapped the bridge back into place and stuffed two cattail tips into his nostrils.
Once the marauders discovered the identity of their victim – that she was one of their own – everyone was freed and invited to their camp, on the outskirts of the oasis. The living accommodations were little more than cloth tents and a communal fire-pit. Like a scene from Grapes of Wrath, as the travelers entered the encampment, they were met with misery and sadness. Babies cried in every tent. Emaciated horses swayed on their feet, too fatigued to even swat flies away. Worst of all, just on the other side of the camp, there was a range of billowing burial mounds.
“Jeeze, no wonder you left,” Norman whispered to Tahra.
“This … isn’t my home,” she answered, dejectedly. She approached her father. “Father, what manner of hunting party is this?”
“This is not a hunting party,” he said. “This is all that remains of our tribe.”
****
That night, both parties pooled their resources into a potluck supper that was still frightfully meager. They ate off woven desert grass plates, scooping food into their mouths with their fingers.
“You have a mark, I see,” Tahra’s father said, indicating to her scalp tattoo.
“I designed it myself,” she answered.
“It is not of the traditional Marked Tribe design.”
“Well, neither am I.”
Tahra’s father, whose name was Ocnus, had a large, pumpkin-shaped head, a shorn scalp, a handlebar mustache that hung in long braids six-inches past his jawline, and tattoos that were wildly different from Tahra’s. They were much more abstract – a conglomeration of sturdy swirls and angles that reminded Norman of Grecian architecture. Ocnus explained that a devilish storm cloud had formed over The Marked Tribe’s village.
“We have weathered fierce storms before,” Ocnus said. “This was no ordinary storm. We have named it The Last Rain.”
“Oh, that’s poetic. I like that,” Roe said.
The Marked Tribe was so isolated from all other Lingerian culture that word of The Black Cloud never reached them. They did not know to run from it and, even if they did know, their bullheadedness would have stopped them.
“We lost so many,” Ocnus said. “The chieftain, vice-chieftain, the council, Reglo, Morth, Ysho, Pannk –”
“What about my mother and the other woman?” Tahra asked.
“Sure. We probably lost women too.” The sound of centuries of patriarchy echoed down the ages. “We had no choice but to flee.”
“But, robbing people –” Tahra chastised. “That is against everything The Marked Tribe believes in. There is honor in war, not in theft.”
“I know! I know!” he howled, his deep brown eyes filled with tears. “I have shamed my fathers! We have become so desperate, daughter. We have lived on our lands for generations. We are lost without them.”
“There is fertile land, just east of here,” Norman said. “I’m sure you could settle there.”
“Who are you?” Ocnus asked. “My daughter’s mate?”
Tahra choked on her food and spat it back into her plate.
“Settle down,” Norman said to her, caustically, and turned to Ocnus. “No. I am The Auth–” He caught himself. He wasn’t really The Author, any more. “I’m … just a guy.”
“Well, ‘Justa-Gai, thank you for returning my daughter home to me.”
“Wait, no, actually my name is –” Norman tried to correct the man but was cut off.
“I am not returning home, father,” Tahra said, sternly. “I have come here to fight and destroy The Black Cloud.”
“That is insanity,” the man barked. “We tried to fight it. It cannot be defeated!”
“But we shall.” Rick spoke up in her defense.
“Quiet, green demon, how dare a goblin speak to me.” Ocnus spat at Rick. “If you and your companions wish to walk to their death, so be it, but, Tahra, I forbid you to go to that place of shadows.”
“Forbid me?!” Tahra shouted. A family therapy session seemed to have begun. “You are in no place to forbid me anything! And why did you not forbid me to enter The Vast, when I was twelve?! Did that not spell certain death?”
“Because I knew you could survive The Karnons,” Ocnus volleyed back. “They are simple beasts, but this is twisted dark magic.”
“Lives are at stake, Ocnus Tahra explained. “Not only the lives of our tribe but all of Lingeria. The Black Cloud will never cease.”
“Let others try to stop it,” he tried. “It will suck the very life-force out of you, while you cry for mercy.”
Tahra stood up. “No matter what it does to me, I shall not cry.”
“I don’t want to lose you again,” Ocnus pleaded. “It will kill you, Tahra!”
“Then, so be it!” Tahra yelled. “I’d rather die trying to save my world than die robbing people at a watering-hole.” And, with that, she walked away.
“She’s got you there, boyo,” Norman said and pushed some stewed meat into his mouth.
****
Tahra and the others slept within the perimeter of her tribe’s camp, for safety. However, by morning, it was obvious the warrior was anxious to leave. She stood by the burial mounds, waiting for her companions to finish eating. Ocnus approached, carrying something wrapped in cloth. Tahra immediately went on the defensive.
“I’m leaving, and –”
“I know, I know,” Ocnus said, putting his hands up in surrender. “I just came to say goodbye and good luck. You are … very brave to do this. Braver than I.” His words were filled with shame. “And I promise you this: no more raiding parties. I will restore honor to The Marked Tribe.”
Ocnus opened his arms again. This time, his daughter didn’t swing; Tahra simply leaned into him and let him put his arms around her. He patted her a few times on the back, and it was over.
“When you return from your fight,” he said, “And you will return. I would be honored it you let me give you your first, legitimate, mark.”
Tahra smiled. “I would … like that.”
“Also, a goblin blade is no good for a Marked Tribe warrior,” Ocnus said. “Take this. It was mine once.”
Ocnus handed Tahra the cloth and she unwrapped it. It was a five-foot broadsword with a hilt carved as intricately as Ocnus’s tattoos.
“I hope it serves you well,” he said.
“It shall,” she responded.
Norman, Roe, Rick, and Pasha walked up to the two of them.
“Here,” Tahra said to Norman, throwing the goblin sword at him. “It’s time you defended yourself.”
“Great,” Norman said, grumpily. He gripped the sword but let the tip drag al
ong the ground as he walked, cutting a thin trail in the dirt.
****
According to Ocnus, The Black Cloud was moving along the northwest edge of Lingeria, in a southward direction. That had been months ago, so the team set out almost directly westward and Pasha’s sixth sense seemed to agree with them.
On the third day, they saw a sign that they were on the right track – a caravan of decrepit refugees laden with all of their worldly possessions coming at them in the opposite direction.
“Turn back,” screamed a toothless grandmother, from atop a wooden wagon.
The heroes remained silent and continued on, all secretly wishing to join the motorcade.
The world grew silent as they walked – even insects and animals had fled. While the sky was spotless, the wind pushed through the trees hard, reminding Norman of home just before a powerful rainstorm.
From the top of a hill, they finally spotted the haunting blackness. It was now only a dozen miles away.
“It’s gotten bigger,” Roe noted.
No one responded. Tahra just started walking again, and the others followed.
That night, they took shelter in an abandoned village. Even though the houses were deserted, most of the front doors were left open. Nobody felt it was proper to stay in someone else’s home. They found a small barn and decided to rest inside. A fire was built, food was cooked, and the meal was eaten in silence.
Later, everyone pretended to sleep. Pasha sat near the ever-dwindling fire, reading The Verisimillion.
Norman rolled over and looked at her. “Have you found anything?”
“If you gave this to me, sight unseen, and asked me to decipher it, I would have told you it is gibberish. Language has patterns and rhythms; small devices that can cue you into its roots. This … this has none of that. It is chaos.”
“What does that tell you?” Norman asked.
“That it isn’t the words in the book that have the power, but the book itself.”