The House of Yeel

by Michael McCloskey

  “I’m Sword Master Kasil. Beware. The serpent-mage Slevander lives in this grove, he’ll trap you. He’ll enslave you as he’s done to me.”

  “Master Kasil! I’ve…I’ve heard of you!” Jymoor stammered.

  “Ah, of course, a classic mistake,” Yeel interrupted. “I assumed cause and effect, but in fact it was a coincidence. Will I ever learn? There are certain principles which must guide and discipline discovery, and I admit extreme embarrassment at making such a foolish error. I withdraw my demands.”

  “Yeel, think no more of it, please, but what about Master Kasil? Can you help her?”

  “Well, she seems fine, although this talent of turning from stone into flesh is quite disconcerting. Miss, are you in good health? You mentioned being trapped? Are there even now invisible restraints which—”

  “You must understand, I can only speak for a short while. I cannot leave this place. Beware of the creature with—”

  Kasil’s urgings were cut short. She looked down toward her feet. Jymoor saw a wavering grayness welling up from the ground. She gasped. Kasil gave a sad sigh as the phenomenon consumed her.

  Once again she appeared as a cold statue of smooth stone. Strips of lichen rested at her feet where they had been dislodged, the only remaining sign of her temporary return to life.

  “This is horrible! She’s imprisoned here. We must aid her…I wonder why she said, ‘whatever manner of beings you are’?”

  Yeel fidgeted for a moment and then shrugged. “She hasn’t met us before, so naturally she…didn’t make any assumptions. Uh, or perhaps that is the traditional greeting construct where she comes from.”

  Jymoor sensed Yeel’s dismissive mood and decided to concentrate on more pressing matters. But she remembered how Yeel had referred to “her race” as if he didn’t share her humanity. Did he simply mean her people?

  “You must prepare to destroy this awful monster that’s done this thing, my lords. Together, two such as you are can do anything!”

  “We’ve only heard one side of the story, my friend,” Yeel said. “Perhaps this Slevander fellow had his reasons. If he even exists. We must keep an open mind. Nevertheless, it would be prudent, yes advisable, to ready ourselves…”

  Yeel fished through his reagents pack with one hand while grasping his shiny three-armed flail with the other. Jymoor saw Yeel twist in a disturbing way. For a moment his movements seemed to defy human skeletal restrictions. Jymoor blinked and looked more carefully…the odd man did only have two arms, right? Of course he did.

  Jymoor shook her head to clear it.

  “What magic do you have to protect us?” pleaded Jymoor, turning her gaze from the wizard and scanning the nearby garden.

  “I have a formula which promotes movement,” Yeel said. “Perhaps that would be appropriate, considering that the theoretical threat at this moment is being turned into a sessile pseudostatue. And then of course, there is my malinthander and the knight’s sword.” Yeel shook his flail emphatically as he mentioned it.

  “Sometimes the greatest of dangers can be avoided through the judicious application of blunt trauma. I wonder how it is that the biped remains standing even though she is now incapable of the constant adjustments that your kind makes to remain upright.”

  “My kind?” Jymoor asked.

  “Well, yes, that is to say, um, mortals. Nonwizards.”

  Yeel produced three small packets and handed one to Jymoor and another to Avorn.

  “Here’s the compound,” he said. “It should be easy to break open.”

  Jymoor took the small packet. She ripped one corner of the container and lifted it toward her mouth, pinching her nose shut.

  “Halt! Desist! Clamp your mandible, Jymoor! Whatever is it that you are preparing to do with the bioruminate pace catalyst?”

  “I don’t swallow it? Is it medicine, a potion mix?”

  “Swallow it? Oh my no. Rub it on yourself. Wait. You haven’t eaten any floridius root today, have you?”

  “Any what?”

  “Flori—oh, no, of course you haven’t. It’s fatal to humans. A poor question on my part. But you can never be too careful. Well, perhaps one could be too careful but I meant—”

  “Yeel, the task at hand,” Avorn interrupted, pouring the powder out into his hand and rubbing it onto his face.

  “Yes. You must be on the watch for this Slevander, whoever or whatever he is,” Jymoor said. She began to rub the substance on her exposed skin.

  “Very well then. A game of cat and mouse is upon us,” Yeel said. “It occurs to me that perhaps we should not be talking. The noise might attract this foe, and we would lose any edge of surprise that we potentially have. In fact, if we continue to speak out loud, Slevander might hear us and attack while we are locked in conversation, catching us by surprise and dispatching us before we are even aware that we are under attack! Why it could even be this very conversation about the possibility itself!”

  Avorn stared at Yeel in irritation. “Then don’t speak!”

  Jymoor winced, afraid that the knight’s harshness might anger Yeel. She had never seen the mighty wizard become enraged before, but the very thought filled her with dread. There were stories…

  “Very well then, let’s all be quiet,” whispered Jymoor. She looked all around, checking for any anomalies.

  Yeel pointed forward. Avorn turned and walked onward, deeper into the forest littered with statues. Jymoor followed, spotting the eerie shapes more and more frequently as they moved on. Jymoor saw stone scouts, footmen, and knights. Some of the statues seemed to be sharply defined and out in the open, but others looked weather worn. A few were partially hidden beneath heavy vines or other foliage.

  They emerged from the trees and Jymoor caught her breath. A vast garden stretched before them. As she took in the sight she realized that the place had been long neglected. Even though beds of flowers and walls of shrubs grew in full color and health, the lines that delineated the various areas of the place had started to blur.

  To the left Jymoor saw the statue of a warrior frozen with his spear ready to cast. The figure stood on the edge of a swath of overgrown grasses.

  “This Slevander has defeated a lot of people,” Jymoor muttered.

  The group walked along the soft grass strip, watching the statues as they passed. Other than the soft rustling of plants in the breeze, Jymoor couldn’t see anything moving. They passed several more stone victims. Jymoor saw a petrified man in a robe, bowing low as if in worship.

  They came to a circular clearing in the flowers, with a ring of six or seven statues arrayed along its perimeter. Suddenly Jymoor noticed a giant black reptile head peering at them from a bed of flowering plants. The eyes held the vertical black slit pupils of a venomous serpent. The jaws of the creature looked wide enough to engulf a man.

  “Beware! I see it!” Jymoor yelped. Yeel and Avorn spun to look at her, so Jymoor just pointed. The other two turned and saw the thing as it reared up on strong, black coils to regard them from above like a giant cobra.

  The twisting ebony serpent locked its eyes onto Jymoor and it spat forth a long acid syllable.

  “Yaaaaaag.”

  The word struck Jymoor like a wave. She felt her skin crackle and harden. For a moment she felt despair. Had she become a statue? Then the attack passed and she exhaled spasmodically, twitching in fear.

  Avorn charged toward the monster, sword held high. He slashed and then thrust at the trunk of the serpent but it retreated out of range. The knight advanced again, but the serpent’s tail whipped around and struck him in the leg. The Crescent Knight faltered beneath the onslaught, falling to one side. His assailant bunched up over him and opened its jaws as if to consume the knight.

  Jymoor could hardly bear to watch. She loathed her helplessness, but she carried no weapons. She hugged the stone next to her. How could she help?

  The stone shifted and she realized she had disturbed another denizen of the awful garden.

  “Your fri
ends may prevail,” a rough voice came from above. Jymoor looked up at the being she had awakened, a stout woodsman with a red beard and axe in hand. Then Jymoor looked back to where the knight had fallen. A huge red-scaled thing towered next to the serpent and the knight. Jymoor struggled with the appearance of something so large seemingly from thin air. Spines erupted from most of its back. The monster had two long front legs with three enormous claws extending half the height of a man. It supported itself on three broad back legs and a long, muscular tail covered in more thorny extensions. Its thick, muscular neck flattened into a wide head that was mostly mouth, like a giant toothed clam. Jymoor couldn’t see any eyes on the creature but that didn’t comfort her in the slightest.

  “Where did that come from?” she cried. “Where’s Yeel?”

  “Take my axe,” the burly man-statue said, and handed Jymoor the weapon. Jymoor grabbed the weapon with one hand without removing her gaze from the towering beast that had appeared to battle Slevander.

  “What can I—” Jymoor stammered, but then she saw that the man next to her had already returned to an inanimate state. The huge tail of the red monster swept toward Jymoor, a giant scaly juggernaut covered in sharp spines.

  Jymoor scrabbled back to avoid being crushed by the tail. Her foot caught in a vine, and she fell back with a shriek into darkness.

  ***

  Yeel swung his malinthander again and bellowed in the manner of a beast. Slevander dodged out of the way with uncanny agility. The serpent retreated, fooled by Yeel’s new disguise. He had planted the suggestion of a terrible foe into the minds of all those around him, in order to gain the initiative in the combat.

  He projected the concept of the malinthander as being the huge paw of the monster he had become. His natural height aided the illusion, since he already stood taller than humans from foot to highest tentacle. He swept it toward Slevander again, just to keep the serpent at bay.

  The pace catalyst that Yeel had employed to immunize himself and his Companions had met with some measure of success; even though Slevander had tried to reduce them to statues, he still moved and fought.

  In order to keep from giving his opponent time to think, Yeel wailed again and lumbered forward. He sent tentacles ahead, transmitting the concept of the huge beast seeking its prey with its long, clawed hands.

  Once again the creature slid away, keeping most of its body under the heavy growth of a patch of beautiful plants. Yeel worried about keeping track of the head and those dangerous fangs. But the mouth might be as dangerous from the spells it could utter as the poison it might impart.

  The head appeared on Yeel’s left flank, curling around the leg of a petrified human. It feinted forward, testing Yeel’s defenses. Yeel bellowed and charged sluggishly. He realized he didn’t have long. The snake mage would be more confident with his next attack.

  The alchemist’s other tentacles had not been idle. Yeel produced a vivid blue sphere with a small hole drilled into it and a thin shaft of reddish metal. He slid the cylinder into the sphere and fused it shut, setting into motion an inevitable reaction that would serve to obliterate the sphere and anything near it.

  Yeel had only seconds to act. The reaction took place even as he stood trying to calculate a likely future location of the black serpent. He hurled the sphere with one tentacle while swinging his malinthander in the other direction with another. He thought the sphere felt warm just as it left his hand. Or had it been his imagination?

  The serpent darted away predictably, sending its sinuous body sliding directly over the sphere. Yeel reversed direction, attempting to make some distance. A muffled boom sent bloody, scaly body parts raining down throughout the garden. A fragment of bone struck Yeel in the trunk, sending a white-hot bolt of pain hurtling along his nerves. He tried to put the injury out of his mind.

  Would the death of Slevander result in the freeing of his victims? Yeel eagerly looked toward the closest statue. As he watched, the person returned to flesh and bone. It was a man in chain wielding a long halberd.

  The man at arms took one step forward, a smile forming on his face as he realized his change of state. Then he saw Yeel.

  The man screamed and ran.

  Chapter 7: Aftermath

  Jymoor found herself lying on cold stone in near darkness.

  Is this what it’s like to be a statue?

  She blinked. No…statues can’t blink, she told herself.

  She lifted her head and turned this way and that, looking for light. She saw some illumination coming from directly above, through a screen of leaves and roots.

  “I must have fallen through that hole,” she said. She felt her limbs, checking if her bones were intact. She felt something warm and sticky…blood…in her hair. She didn’t seem to be seriously injured.

  “How will I get out?” Jymoor considered the monster Slevander. Did she want to get out? Maybe she would be safe, here. Until she starved.

  Jymoor heard something. A familiar voice came to her in broken pieces of conversation. She struggled to catch the words.

  “I tell you that she is invaluable…my guide and personal aide…drew me from my fortress…so many of us…comb the flora…the serpent has consumed her…search for her corpse…”

  “Yeel!” Jymoor called out. Her voice reverberated loudly in the tunnel. “Yeel, can you hear me?”

  “What…that I heard…listen! listen!”

  “Yeel, I’m down here! Help me!” Jymoor yelled at the top of her lungs.

  The voice grew louder.

  “Ah, of course, such a simple explanation! She’s fallen through that gap in the earth’s surface! A natural cavern of some sort, and thank gravity for the rest. It has greedily sucked her into the bowels of the planet. It occurs to me that such a fall may have inflicted injury on my friend—”

  “Yeel, I’m fine! Please get me out of here.”

  “Ah, she awaits rescue! We must immediately devise a means by which we could—”

  “Drop me a rope…or a vine!”

  “Now that’s an interesting plan. A long flexible cord of some sort of…wait a second! Wait, that’s giving me an idea. Jymoor, close your eyes. I think I can effect your escape from there. Halt your visual reconnoiter for but a moment!”

  “What?”

  “Just stand still and close your eyes, my friend. Close your eyes for a second and I shall use a…a rope, as you say, please just do as I say and I will take care of the rest. Release your anxiety and trust in me.”

  Jymoor felt confused, but she trusted the tall, wordy mage. She closed her eyes, standing uncertainly in the dark.

  “I have my eyes closed.”

  The barest whisper of a scraping…or slithering…noise came from above. Suddenly a cordon of taut material encircled her waist and rocketed her upward through the nest of roots above.

  “Ack! What!” Jymoor spat. She couldn’t open her eyes as the roots whipped over her face. Then she felt warm sunlight and her feet found the ground again. Jymoor took a peek and found herself next to Yeel, in the garden. All about them people stood looking as confused as Jymoor felt.

  “A most dangerous opening in the earth, my friend. I shall have to make an effort to remember it, lest others fall victim to the pit.”

  “What kind of a rope was that? It felt almost…alive!”

  “Ridiculous! The fall has scattered your mind, my friend. It’s good to see you alive! I thought you consumed by the beast. Gone forever, as it were, well not gone in the sense of removal of your substance, but of course in the sense of your mental faculties, your intellectual essence, the operation of your bodily functions in the manner intended as—”

  “What happened to the black serpent? All the people, they’re free now?”

  Avorn stepped forward. “We have Jymoor now. We should continue as soon as possible. Now that we have a larger group, we’ll have to organize ourselves to hunt and gather food more efficiently.”

  “Slevander is dead thanks to the Crescent Knight,�
� Yeel said. “It was a close battle, but…”

  “It was not me,” the knight interrupted. “It was that monster that you summoned. I thank you for my life, wizard. I doubted you before, I admit, but I’m glad to have you on our side.”

  “Well, I should hope that I’m no longer considered facinorous by Your Knightship. This is a most welcome advance in the state of our relationship. I’d like to be accepted as one of your most valued allies against these barbarous hordes that plan to desecrate your knowledge storage centers.”

  An uncomfortable silence stretched as Jymoor struggled to absorb this speech.

  The knight grunted rudely and said, “We’ll camp here tonight and leave first thing in the morning. There are over four score of us altogether, soldiers, knights, princes, and priests.” Then Avorn turned and walked away toward another group of men and women who were milling about in confusion.

  “Amazing, to find such a varied selection of your population that crosses both social strata as well as time boundaries. I think you may find it difficult to reassimilate all of these citizens back into your society unless there already exists some sort of framework for absorbing these sort of temporal castaways.”

  Jymoor tried to understand again. She tried to form questions in her mind, seeking some way to ask for explanation. Her thought was interrupted when she noticed Master Kasil striding confidently toward them.

  “Yeel!” Jymoor hissed. “That is…” then she stopped, realizing she was about to share her wonder with another figure of legend. She shook her head.

  “Let me thank you personally for saving me, beautiful,” Kasil said, extending her hand to Jymoor.

  “Beau-beautiful?” Jymoor croaked. Had the words been directed at her? Yet Master Kasil’s hand remained extended, awaiting her own. Jymoor started and thrust forward her own hand to shake Master Kasil’s vigorously.

  “It was Yeel that saved you,” she said. “Or the Crescent Knight…”

  “Oh, I’ll be sure and thank him later,” Kasil remarked and winked at her. Jymoor struggled to deal with the sudden familiarity exhibited by the famous sword master.