The House of Yeel

by Michael McCloskey

  Jymoor froze.

  Do I engage a man without a weapon? Do I care more for honor or victory?

  An arrow sliced into the man from above. His face stretched in shock, then he fell to the ground.

  Jymoor stepped forward along the wall to find the next one. She saw him twenty paces ahead.

  This man offered no moral dilemmas. He saw Jymoor approach and raised his buckler shield and spear to face her. Scales protected his shoulders and torso. Thick animal skins hung over his loins and thighs. Predictably, he moved forward and thrust his spear at her visor slit.

  Jymoor swept her sword to knock the spear aside. Instead, her weapon cut through the spear, sending its head flying. The barbarian growled and thwacked Jymoor across the helm with the remainder. His buckler swung around and smashed into her wounded left shoulder. The pain came back with crippling intensity.

  Her sword pointed off to her left, way out of line with her opponent’s heart. In a flash of inspiration she spun away from her enemy to her left, completing a full circle to bring her sword back around, pointing at him. The spear haft hit her as she turned but it wasn’t a good blow. Her sword thrust through the scales on his torso. She quickly pulled her blade back out even though it was agony to do so.

  Jymoor staggered over her felled opponent. She held her left arm to her torso, trying to ignore the throbbing pain.

  If there is victory today, it probably won’t be because of me.

  Jymoor didn’t see any enemies nearby. She pulled her helm off to get a better look. The rest of the barbarians were running away. Ascarans were pursuing them around the perimeter of Maristaple. Though there were still many of them, they’d been broken.

  Jymoor sat down with her back against the wall. She rested for minutes there until a squad of Rikenese cavalry trotted up from the direction of the main gate.

  “Are you wounded?”

  “Moderately,” Jymoor admitted. “Thank you for coming to check.”

  “Gladly. We got word the Crescent Knight was hurt by the wall and King Aruscetar sent us out to find you.”

  “How goes the battle?”

  “Well. The knights came out to help the Ascarans. I think one gate was sundered and a bloody fight resulted, but that’s far away.”

  “I’ll be fine. Go help elsewhere.”

  “Sorry, but the king’s orders,” the man said. They helped Jymoor onto one of the horses.

  “We’ve won,” Vot voice returned to her head. “Though not without cost. Many Ascarans have given their lives. Also, Tuluk lies among the dead. No doubt we owe our victory largely to him. His body lies on the field with a thousand wounds.”

  Chapter 21: A New Library

  The city of Maristaple filled with revelers. Though everyone wanted to speak with the Great Yeel, the Crescent Knight, the mysterious Vot, or King Aruscetar, many had to satisfy themselves with only a glimpse of these famous figures at a distance. After a brief victory parade, they moved into the castle for a smaller celebration. Other more subtle groups, less jubilant, had dead to honor and graves to dig. The fallen were hailed as heroes who had saved the city in its most dire hour.

  Vot and Yeel dined with the king that evening in a huge formal dining hall. Jymoor was present, and much more comfortable than she’d been at the table of men in Ascara-home, with Master Kasil at her side. Yeel had applied some advanced first aid, fusing Jymoor’s broken bones back together.

  Before the meal commenced, King Aruscetar turned to Yeel.

  “Great Yeel. Would you please accept the contents of the Library of Maristaple? We know the trove of knowledge would be safe in your wondrous house. Of course, you would be welcome to make personal use of any of the tomes and scrolls.”

  “My house? Really? You would let me have all those books?”

  “We ask only a few scribes and scholars be allowed to access it from time to time.”

  “I must first and foremost thank you for trusting me with such valuable artifacts.”

  “We owe equal thanks to Vot, for risking her precious army to aid in our defense,” Aruscetar announced. Many applauded.

  “I’m glad Riken has been saved,” Vot said. “However, we’ll be forced to leave after we dine. The Ascarans can safely move out of the fortress and take up their traditional homes on the coast. They may need my assistance.”

  “We’re in your debt,” Jymoor said. “Thank you for trusting us.”

  “Come visit us again. See how peaceful it can be, under the green sky, without the threat of the Meridalae.”

  “What of Tuluk?” asked Jymoor.

  “There are two young males in his pod that will contend for mastery,” Vot said. “Though we will miss Tuluk, life goes on.”

  ***

  Yeel watched the remnants of those Jymoor called his Companions. Of the fifty or so who had been rescued from the stone garden, less than half remained. Many had died in the fighting at Vot’s stronghold and then later at the battle for Maristaple. Still others, having won the day, announced their happy retirement or similar plans not involving Yeel. They had all been very gracious and thanked Yeel for his role in their rescue.

  Yeel counted twenty-one individuals down below near the fountain, including Jymoor and Master Kasil.

  “Please excuse my distant perch,” Yeel called down. “I’m sure I could find my way down there rapidly, but it occurs to me this is an easy way to address you all anyway, so if you please forgive any perceived insult.”

  Yeel had their attention. His Companions looked up as one.

  I must hurry the message along. These ones have little patience for extended discourse, he reminded himself.

  “My Companions, I feel terrible to call upon you after two such desperate battles. Yet I would be negligent to ignore the menace that made both these wars necessary. You see, the Meridalae still have a foothold on your world. They will come back someday and cause another war. Unless we stop them now, while they’re weak.”

  “I don’t think the army…either army…is ready to be deployed again after such a bloody time,” Jymoor said. She unconsciously rubbed her wounded shoulder as she spoke.

  “There will be no army. Only myself and you Companions. You are all adventurers. You had to be to make it as far as the stone garden of Slevander. I’ve…become aware of…a hidden base from which the Meridalae directed this attack against Maristaple. If we go there now, we may surprise them and end this menace forever.”

  “How do you know where to go?” Jymoor asked.

  “That’s a good question. A really good question. I believe your predecessor knew I was once of the Meridalae.”

  “You!”

  “Yes. I’m not proud of it. I must have been fooled.”

  “Must have been? You…you don’t remember.”

  “You see…my species…that is, giant green cones of rubbery flesh with long tentacles such as myself…we cannot form memories when very young.”

  “Oh! Neither can we.”

  “So, for the first hundred years or so—”

  “A hundred years? As an infant?”

  “…for the first while, we can’t form memories, then we slowly learn a trick here or there to extend certain thoughts over time, and eventually, we learn to remember something permanently. Or semipermanently, anyway.”

  “But I did eventually commit to memory three of their lairs here on your world: Eight Rod, Steelskull, and the Brown Moors. I’ve consulted with maps from your library and found these places. The closest, the Brown Moors, is probably where they are now, since in order to coordinate their offensive, they would have moved to the closest base.”

  “They may have fled by now.”

  “Ah. No, at least not completely. You see, at some point, one of my eyes was put into a reagent jar in the lair. Something preserved it. I can definitely see movement there, as recently as a couple of hours ago.”

  “But you have both—oh.”

  “Yes, as you have guessed, my eyes are not exactly like yours, not
even somewhat like yours; in fact, they’re not vaguely like yours, in location, number, or freshness limitations.”

  “I’m afraid to ask. As long as you lead us there, I’ll follow you though.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I will, too,” someone said.

  “Yeel is green?” a voice asked quietly.

  “And I,” another echoed loudly. Soon it was clear everyone would join him, and many hadn’t known Yeel was green.

  Now for the hard part.

  Chapter 22: The Brown Moors

  Yeel left with his Companions early the next morning. King Aruscetar had wanted to arrange for a grand escort of his remaining horsemen, but Yeel had dissuaded the monarch, telling him they wanted to catch the Meridalae by surprise. He had accepted horses for his Companions and a wagon for himself to travel in.

  They were able to travel part of the way by road. It took them two days to reach a small trail branching into the wilds. It twisted and turned, eventually narrowing. The trees pressed in, making the trail become ever harder to follow. Everyone dismounted and proceeded on foot.

  Yeel led the way.

  ���It will be underground, and the entrance is hidden. I recall a stony formation,” he said.

  “You don’t remember it exactly,” Jymoor said.

  “Well, of course not.”

  The trees thinned. The ground became wetter. A view opened before them of a rolling, grassy land.

  “The Brown Moors,” he announced.

  The column proceeded across the wet grassland. Yeel meandered a bit, but headed always west. Then after an hour, he headed for a rise where he saw a bit of exposed rock. He paused to look in all directions. This spot was the only rocky outcropping he saw.

  “This is the entrance.”

  “There’s nothing here,” Master Kasil said.

  “It’s underground.”

  “But the soil beneath our feet is drenched in water,” Jymoor said. “How can anything be underground here without being flooded?”

  “It is flooded.”

  “What? You do know we need to breathe, don’t you?” Master Kasil demanded.

  They’re so bound by limitations. And fear of the unknown, poor creatures.

  “It’s not completely flooded. There’s a very clever system to harvest and pump away the water. That alone is a fascinating aspect of the place. I don’t quite remember—”

  Jymoor cleared her throat. “I believe time is of the essence, no?”

  “Of course. Follow me.”

  Yeel led the way up the modest rise. They neared a cluster of rough, pocked boulders. A tall stand of grass, with blades as wide as a human hand blocked their way.

  Yeel smashed it down and looked beyond.

  A wavy black barrier obscured the way between two large boulders.

  “There it is,” he said. “Just as I remembered.”

  Jymoor stepped through the bent grass camouflage and looked at the foreboding black curtain.

  “What’s that made of?”

  “The hide of a null dragon, perhaps,” Yeel said. “Or it could be a photonic curler sheet.”

  “Forget I asked. Let’s go.”

  “Wait but a moment…I have to get something ready first.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s a defensive measure.”

  “Of what kind?” hissed Master Kasil, joining them at the curtain.

  “Sometimes the best defense is a really good reactive defense.”

  “What?”

  “A defense so good that it kills anyone on the offense. Since we lack any real workers of magic, it seems wise to employ powerful antimagic means.”

  Yeel recovered three silver spheres from his pack.

  “These are vlure eggs. Each houses a nascent vlure, a creature that feeds on magical energy. Each time we encounter a mage of the Meridalae, I’ll release a vlure. The creatures are rather nightmarish, actually. They will mature within seconds of being exposed to magical effects, and, once active, they typically proceed to draw a mage’s brain right out of the skull. It’s very unsettling to watch, by all accounts.”

  “They deserve it, if they’ve caused all that destruction on two worlds.”

  “Oh, more than two worlds, I assure you. But that’s good for us. They’re stretched thin.”

  “So, how do we go in?”

  “Not yet. First an offensive measure.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” Yeel took a small bottle out of his pack.

  “Tuluk’s poison. Though most was spent, there was still a little left in his body. He can serve us one more time.”

  “Its effect?”

  “Violent spasms, hallucinations, and death.”

  Everyone put some of the poison on their weapons. Jymoor filled up the sac in the end of her fenlar. After listening to Yeel describe its dangers, the Companions stood a bit farther apart, holding their spears and blades more carefully.

  “Can we go in now?” Jymoor prompted again.

  “You go first.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “Well, it’s simply that you’re wearing heavy armor. Better than any of the knights we have here among us. I’ll go in behind you. Actually we should arrange the Companions so that our heavily armored fighters are in front. The more…agile ones can follow behind.”

  Yeel tried to pull aside the edge of the black sheet, but his tentacle simply slipped through it. It didn’t hurt. Yeel grabbed a rock and slipped it through then retrieved it.

  “Here, we go,” he said, and slid through.

  The stone stairs beyond were slick with moisture and slime. Yeel moved easily down but Jymoor slipped and fell behind him, causing a thump to echo ahead of them. Master Kasil followed, and fell herself as she tried to help Jymoor up. Kasil swore.

  Her vocabulary is more colorful than the other females of her species, Yeel thought.

  Yeel got to the bottom of the stairs perhaps fifteen feet below. A long stone chamber lay ahead, lit by holes in the ceiling. Square pools of water hugged the walls to the left and right. A straight stone path led through the center of the room to a dark archway at the end. A stone balcony overlooked the room from the far side, just above the archway. Yeel spotted a second exit from the balcony.

  He waited for more Companions to join him at the bottom of the stair. He tested the water with a tentacle. Cold, but pure.

  As people began to press on the stairs behind, still slipping and falling, Yeel moved forward down the walkway. Jymoor and Master Kasil followed behind. A knight that Yeel knew called Groylvir drew his longsword as he came down the stairs. Yeel had given the man a special ring. Anyone struck by a weapon in the hand wearing the ring lost body heat rapidly. The attacking weapon became hotter, the target colder.

  Suddenly a column of frothy water rose on their right. It was about the size of a man. The water seemed to take shape for just long enough to make Yeel wonder before breaking up into a random spray and reforming.

  “What’s that thing?” Jymoor asked. As she spoke, another column sprouted up out of the water on their left.

  “Everyone hold your breath!” Yeel called out.

  The columns moved out of the water and onto the walkway among them. Limbs of water struck out and exploded across Master Kasil and Groylvir, then Jymoor. Yeel turned and whipped a tentacle completely through one of the things, but it wasn’t disrupted by his move. He fished through his pack.

  Jymoor fell to her knees. Water poured out of the eye slit of her helm. She started to remove it. Master Kasil was stabbing the water before her, but it had little effect. An arm of water reached out to engulf her face.

  Groylvir tackled one of the watery forms. Water sprayed everywhere. Groylvir fell to the stone floor, water clinging to his armor. More Companions rushed in to help him. The knight thrashed, trying to breathe.

  Should I change its density, or alkalinity? No time. Both.

  Yeel grabbed two packets and ripped them open, then sprayed their cont
ents out upon the other column of water. It bubbled and fizzed angrily. Another Companion, emboldened by Groylvir’s move, tackled a column and fell into the water beyond.

  Groylvir was helped up and friends removed his helm. He sputtered and coughed. Jymoor had started to recover.

  “Help that man…Uncir? Help him out of the water!” Yeel called.

  A brilliant white light flashed across the room. A shining creature appeared on the stone balcony above. It looked vaguely humanoid, though three eyes blazed redly atop its head. Collections of crackling sparks moved across its body.

  “Oh no! I’m afraid the resistance of our outer integument has been drastically lowered by all the water,” Yeel said.

  “What?” Jymoor asked.

  Yeel wrapped the end of a tentacle around one of the vlure spheres. He threw it up toward the balcony. As it flew through the air, a bright flash of lightning exploded through the room. An intense pain coruscated through Yeel, causing him to emit a high-pitched keening wail.

  A moment later, the pain was gone replaced by an aching numbness. From up above on the stone balcony, the shining being screamed a long, frantic scream ending in a gurgle.

  “The vlure has done its work,” Yeel said.

  The Companions had fallen beneath the onslaught. Everyone moved slowly. Moans filled the room.

  “How badly are you damaged?” Yeel asked Jymoor. She grunted and stood unsteadily.

  “I’ve never felt such pain! My hands are tingling.”

  “At least the vlure got him before it could get worse. Is everyone alright?”

  “There!” someone called.

  Yeel spotted the object of their attention. The man who had fallen into the pool after tackling the water column floated with his head under the water. Two other Companions retrieved him. They listened for breath. He sputtered weakly.

  “Can you help him? He was the first one struck, I think,” Jymoor said.

  Yeel felt the man’s chest. The heartbeat was weak. The man trembled. His breath wheezed.