by Chris Turner
THE ISK RIDER
OF
BAZUUR
Chris Turner
Copyright 2012 Chris Turner
Cover Art: Steve Bissonnette
http://www.facebook.com/rsbissonnette
Published by Innersky Books
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
CONTENTS
1: The Isk Rider of Bazuur
2: Lim-Lalyn
3: The Time-smith of Ezmaron
4: The Temple of Vitus
Books in The RELIC HUNTER series:
Forsaken Magic : Witch of the Thorn
The Isk Rider of Bazuur
The Temple of Vitus
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1: The Isk Rider of Bazuur
Risgan the Relic Hunter, bon-vivant and adventurer, has escaped Thornkeep, abode and workshop of the dark sorceress Afrid. She now lies a shrunken dwarf in a cage that he keeps close at hand, her reward for trying to turn him into an automaton. On a side mission he has helped the hetman’s daughter of the village Caerlin and her people escape the clutch of a band of barbaric raiders.
Treasure-hunter by nature, Risgan is an enterprising rogue who wears leather breeches, jerkin and black boots. He travels with four new allies, former prisoners of the witch: Jurna, a journeyman, tracker, dark-haired and shaggy, whose looks belie his good natured disposition; young Moeze, a questionable magician, tall and spare, whose spells have not helped them much on their journey; Kahel, a grim-faced archer with thick red beard, who is swift and strong, whose cynical outlook is only eclipsed by his mean skill with a hunter’s bow. Finally, Hape the Homeless, a thin-boned drifter, something of a vagrant whose rather meek temperament is offset by his knowledge of the wild lands. The troupe travels north, ever watchful for marauding isks that prowl the skies...
The forests of the north were forbidding and vast; indeed, providing no pleasures or fragrant bowers for the casual day-tripper. As the five fugitives braved the knitted tangle and vine-swept valleys, Risgan felt a lightness to his step, a curious vigour he had not experienced for years. He recalled Afrid’s extreme reversal of aging and wondered if he were feeling effects of similar nature, though in a lesser, more merciful degree. It prompted him to wonder about his own fate. All too well he remembered handling the luminous side of his new talisman with more frequency than the dark, Kraken-blasted one, which might explain his more energetic step versus that of his peers. The mixed handling might have created a slower decay than what had overtaken the sorceress who stared out of her small thorn prison at his side. Risgan wondered... his lips curled in a disapproving scowl...
Was the thing cursed?
He had kept it covered in its black silk, so that he might not tamper with the magic. Cursed magic: so why not get rid of it? The relic was dangerous, more trouble than it was worth... But if it were valued as much as Vosta’s magician had hinted... No, if he were strictly honest, he would realize that this vain attachment to the fist-sized piece of nephrite would never allow him to discard it so wantonly. It was a magnificent gem. Entrancing to the eye, beguiling to the imagination. Yet probably tainted... the reason why it had been buried in the sarcophagus long aeons ago. So, why had he been the one to dig it up?
He sat with these chilling questions as he padded through the aisles of green balmwood with his four companions. The carpets of goblin leaf and wolf-spruce needles felt crisp under his feet, like beautiful embroidery from a mistress’s gown. The dappled spinneys and hidden falls were lush, the vine-draped ruins, curiosities to be feared. There were beasts that dwelled here with senses much keener than his own, which justified his need for ample caution. Nonetheless, the way was easier with the support of four companions rather than none, so with gratitude Risgan made swift progress. The archer Kahel’s skill kept hungry gibbeths at bay; the tracker Jurna’s scouting was not to be faulted. Climbing to the top of a ridge, Jurna sized up the area, deciding on what course to take, often sparing the uneasy troupe leagues of cumbersome skirting of marsh or sluggish river, and the pitfalls of an encounter with a cave volfi or flock of forest mastakons. Moeze the magician’s magic was unspectacular. His sorcery could only be counted amongst their least ripest assets, as were Hape’s, who was timid in his mannerisms—hardly a hero of the road, excepting his knack for finding safe places to sleep.
Armed with these resources, the road was not as secure as Risgan would have liked. Successive bouts of bad weather had left them dispirited. The group weathered lightning and freak storms. They passed the dreaded Bagmire swamps along a natural causeway of fallen deadheads where they struggled to attain higher ground. The fringes of the Fadnar woods saw them savaged by half-mongoloid forest bandits, barely repulsed by Moeze’s diminutive magic and Kahel’s sharp arrows. Surviving this, they only walked into an attack by a shaggy gibbeth, the beast slowed only by Risgan’s purple stun-powder and Moeze’s blinding silver disc. Jurna’s knives and Risgan’s gibbeth club slew the creature in the end, but Kahel suffered minor injuries from a surprise swoop by a rogue isk. Moeze pointed his squirt tube and sprayed the bird’s eyes while Risgan savaged it with his club. The bird flew off, cawing in fury. Hape could not quite be the same after staring that blue-eyed, bald-headed fiend in the eye.
“Onwards, wayfarers, onwards!” called Risgan with energy. “We have yet to escape these savage woods!”
“You really expect us to find this fabled city which Hape speaks of?” grumbled Kahel.
“I do.”
With the most reserved caution they continued, retaining most of Afrid’s magic items, including her skull amulet which guarded several supernatural powers, all undecipherable. Afrid’s self-powered, three-wheeled carriage was still intact, the same which had carried all their supplies safely, although it was in need of being carried across the most onerous terrain.
In these moments Risgan vowed to demand full restitution from Vosta and his detestable magician who had betrayed him to His Highness, the Pontific, and forced him on this perilous journey.
Risgan had been practicing incantations in secret using Afrid’s amulet, reading from her spell book. He repeated each phrase with a determined turn of tongue. The magic syllables invoked a thrill of mystique in him and had him flexing his fingers in the attitude of a mage, the same sorcerous gestures Afrid had demonstrated back at her mansion.
To no great avail. Risgan attracted the interests of a low-flying isk as it swooped in search of prey from the treetops. The bird’s attack was swift and would have killed them all had not Kahel, after a hasty miss, put an arrow into its breast.
“Ugly things, these isks,” spat Jurna, eyeing its twitching black hide. “Between them and Afrid, I think we’re—”
“What? The most ill-fated fools in Fandria?” muttered Kahel. He yanked the bloody arrow from the beast’s flesh and stuck it in his quiver.
Risgan stared at the massive yellow beak and hooked talons and rubbed his chin in grave reflection. Grumbles and curses came amongst the fellowship, and Risgan was banned from practicing further spellcraft...
* * *
The trees thinned. After a while the arms of the forest opened upon a large plain. They neared the city that Hape had been chattering on about and began to spy unusual objects floating in the sky. Large globes which looked like balloons, to Risgan’s surprise. He marvelled at the enchantment which kept them adrift. Viridian, cinnamon, vermilion, smalt, orange, parrot yellow... Many were giants: some were driven by the winds, others fared by chance, and yet the bulk were propelled by great docile birds, distant cousins to the predatory isks. The folk of Bazuur, legend said, were admirers of birds in a
ll sizes and qualities, even the flesh-tearing type.
The most famous birds were the teratyx, huge fowl with elongated brown beaks and large grey wing spans. Strapped and harnessed to the rigging, they pulled the balloons around the city. The rich had the most colourful and largest of litter-sedans dangling from their balloon harnesses. Today, on the day of their arrival, a merchant-lord by the name of Belcax was hosting a competition which drew great prizes and special honour. Many citizens had entered their champions. Bird fights? Duels? Risgan did not know. A grand spectacle was in the making, but as for the new arrivals, they were not invited, and so remained ignorant of the program.
Afrid’s cart proved a novelty to the Bazuurian folk, who were generally affable and of dignified temperament. The men wore coiled hats of woven yarn and bright breeches and cloaks. The ladies wore leather dresses or plain white gowns dressed with tassels or colourful symbols. For the most part these citizens had tanned faces, straight jet hair, though a few heads strayed toward the reddish. An appreciable number showed a lively bounce to their step.
Under Frober’s Arch they passed, the city gate, a looming glyph-carved curve of stone inscribed with ancient maxims of the Merchant-Lords. Archer-friendly watchtowers cast blue-black shadows on the court—towers which had lain dormant for a half century. Several of the city guardsmen stood armed, helmed and wearing the surcoats of Merchant-Royals blazoned with the grey teratyx. A low blackstone wall surrounded the city, spreading east and west out from either arch.
The duty officer took in their disposition in a glance. “You have goods to declare?”
“None,” stated Risgan, “—only this grotesque—” he motioned to Afrid “—a midget which we hope to pawn in the market, though our hopes are extravagant.”
The officer gave the creature a close inspection, wrinkling his nose. “You will not get much here. The spring-wound cart is a better draw.”
“Aye, but ’tis not for sale.”
The officer shrugged. With practiced hands he searched their persons and gave a snuffling exclamation. “What is this gem here? ’Tis wrapped in a costly fabric of silk.”
“Only to protect it from scratching,” explained Risgan. “It is not worth much, possibly a half gold piece on a good day, barring thievery and breakage. ’Tis a sentimental memento, which I carry for the whim of pure luck.”
The duty officer grumbled in an offhand manner. “And this?” He motioned to the glass spiralled tube, roped fastidiously to Moeze’s belt.
Moeze gave the adjunct a jocular squeeze, which caused a puff of yellow billow of vapour to pass near the officer’s face. The attendant cringed, face pale as he struggled to breathe. “Get away, you cursed troublemakers!” he cried, wiping his eyes.
Muttering unforgiving oaths, the official waved them on to the next wicket where a round-bellied attendant issued them transit visas—pale grey stamps on the back of their hands. The company was charged an ozok apiece for their goods, which Risgan bartered down to Afrid’s silver hair pin—the same he recalled which had been pricked in his leg in a mood of jovial malice.
Bazuur was an elegant town, rich with moss-covered brick, carved masonry and cloistered backyards. Courtyards straddled the streets dressed with ceremonial towers, birdbaths and fountains and quaint flagstoned alleys. The architects, Risgan reflected, were those craftsmen who still favoured a classical taste, and not the barbarous excesses of the Hauzgards who built the exotic cities to the south. This was not the zigzag of cramped alleys or market mud paths Risgan was used to on his travels.
Perhaps most famous of sites of Bazuur were the legendary pavilions, always a sensation to wayfarers and newcomers. Such constructions cast wonder into the hearts and minds of romanticists. Some towered eighty feet high, supported on massive columns—enormous arenas of stone and wood. Five hundred feet long by three hundred wide, they reared, gigantic raised stadiums or soaring marketplaces, supported on rectangular grids of carved columns positioned every ten square feet. Tier on tier of amphitheatre seats radiated upward, offering residents witness to the famous games and merchant markets that northern Fandria had to offer. Citizens could fly up on their balloons, or climb the footholds carved in the fluted columns, with the possibility of great views, or sadly, at times, the most careless spectators falling to their doom from the heights. The grey-cobbled streets below were nearly empty. All the people had gathered to socialize in the sky marketplaces or view the spectacles hosted by the merchantmen of the Bazuur guild. Others clustered aloft in balloon gondolas whisked here and there by the many teratyx.
Risgan and his colleagues found the Travellers’ Rest Inn easily in the centre of the Merry-Merchants’ District. They resided the night and ate a decent fare, slapping coins on the table confiscated from Afrid’s strongbox. Publias, the plump innkeeper, discovered that they were relic traders of a sort, and advised them to start their search for shop space in the wine district.
“You can make your way to the pavilions from there,” he counselled genially. “Through inquiry and the merit of your goods, you will carve your own reputation. We are a merry and accommodating folk, if not for the terror of the cruel Vaspiz, an evil marauder. Vaspiz the Viper, they call him. An imp of savagery!” But when they probed the innkeeper for more details, he would provide no follow up and the patrons seemed to have become gravely silent.
The wayfarers rented a cramped storehouse down the Valhoar Way on Publias’s recommendation. Abiding his instruction, they purchased a large withe-board from the local carpentry and Risgan wrote in bold crayon:
Rozgar’s Shop of Rare Wonders
Come one, come all! Collectors, Activists, Wizards, Itinerants—Here be relics, trinkets, curios and antiques, also magic items of all sorts!
“A bold claim,” muttered Jurna doubtfully. “How do you propose to sell these wares?”
“Why, with your help, of course!” Risgan laughed. “We shall create a line of creditable merchandise, for the procurement of all the best buyers. I can employ four first-rate gentlemen as ‘associate’ Retrievers—Jurna, you are a man of repute and an explorer of fine and interesting places, guarding a wellspring of geographical information. Think! Many of the places where relics can be had are in your brain. Temples, ruins and graves. The places of wealth.” He turned to Hape. “Hape, you are an accomplished vagabond who in your wanderings and sleepovers must know of many enticing locales that Jurna has missed. Moeze!—I name you official classifier of magic items and magical arcana, thus, all the better to offer useful services in the name of magical support. Kahel, ostensibly a lone mercenary, you are perfect for the role of protector and able to guard our colleagues of dangers and disasters. Likewise, they will need inside information, to combat foes and border agents.”
Kahel wryly pointed out that his role was subsidiary to the actual collection of goods.
Risgan flourished a negligent hand. “You shall share in equal spoils, regardless of task!”
Kahel admitted that such a post might be considered.
“Then we are settled.”
“Wait!” cried Hape, “who is this Rozgar fellow?”
“Who else but you? I do not wish to be named in the enterprise, for personal reasons upon which I do not wish to elaborate.”
“Please indulge us.”
Risgan took frowning pains in describing to the company his running afoul of the Pontific and his near fatal encounter with Baron Bousaka’s men-at-arms quite a while back and his arrival at Afrid’s mansion.
“This wish bone magic then,” queried Moeze, “is it actually real?”
Risgan made a soft sound, bordering on a grunt. “Pah, the only thing that is real is Lady Farella’s heat—if I may be so bold to hint, and were I a younger man and not driven to such reckless haste—ah, well, I digress. The clothes-stripping of the nobles was nothing but the peculiar jocularity of the Pontific’s court magician, Narvius, and I suspect, the wish bone was a fake, lost in a skirmish while fleeing from the killer owls of babao’s gl
ade prior to Afrid’s horrors.”
Moeze’s lips pinched in disappointment.
“Never fear!” Risgan cried, lifting a hand at the magician’s disappointment. He pointed to impressive rank of adjuncts at his belt. “Your pump of fetid gas may be all you need.”
Moeze showed a brightening of eyes.
* * *
Eerily, the maze-stone streets of Bazuur were rarely busy. Looking up through the spaces between the arches and buildings, the troupe glimpsed balloons and gondolas in plenty, floating, rippling, driven by hot air or the squawking teratyx as they propelled their litter-sedans and gondolas every which way. Ever did the spectacular pavilions loom at the edge of Risgan’s eye. Square, rectangular and oval: rising like great mushrooms or huge blossoming flowers through the sprawl of the city.
Risgan sought to set up temporary ware-space in the Onyx Pavilion not far south of the city’s centre: a fifty-foot-high structure of shimmering ebon masonry. A good starting point at least, thought Risgan. They hired a small balloon to convey their new sign, table and wares, including some of Afrid’s lesser adjuncts, on an upward journey paid for by the sorceress’s coins.
At street level Risgan noticed the lower parts of the pavilion served as wine cellars and gondola-crafting areas. Balloon-works and a great yard for teratyx showed themselves, birds which squawked rowdily behind fences of mesh. Fronting the foremost columns, various balloon agencies touted hot-air craft for hire: many a desirable model, with or without teratyx or gondolas.
At the base of the northeast-corner column, Risgan watched a barber attaching a small basket of scissors, white bib, and stool onto his balloon harness. The barber mopped his brow. The heat grew and he gave a sharp grunt. A small cable ran up the column from which the entrepreneur prepared to attach a rope to guide his small balloon and gear topside while he climbed the handholds and footholds.