Skylantern Dragons and the Monsters of Mundor

by Scott Taylor

  ‘I followed the trail of destruction and…’

  Marl offered a knowing smile.

  ‘So you came looking for someone very special to you?’

  ‘No! Yes, I mean…’

  ‘Don’t worry, my young friend’ eased Marl suddenly. ‘I was young once. You don’t have to hide your feelings around me.’

  ‘Wha-what?’ stammered the prince.

  ‘Did you not have feelings for the ambassador?’ Iron May observed coldly.

  ‘That is none of your business!’ he snapped, putting on a masculine voice that made him appear rather comical. Standing tall finally, he looked his accuser in the eye and uttered,

  ‘Try not to pry into everything I do.’

  ‘Be not ashamed. There is no ignominy in tender feelings for another.’

  The prince looked astounded that any man would speak thus.

  ‘So then…’ Marl spoke at last, ‘we ride. We will follow the path of destruction wherever it may lead, and we will find the ambassador!’

  The others raised their hands and voices in agreement.

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘You do not fear me, then?’ asked the prince.

  ‘I fear not truth.’ was the response. ‘Be a dragon if that is what you are. It is much the same as asking someone to be a distinct entity. It takes an inward seeking eye to discover that forbidden truth. Looking deep within your soul and finding a dragon sleeping there where once you only felt a mountain of tainted gold gives you a new perspective on life I should imagine.’

  The prince felt heartened at this show of friendship, and acceptance. These strange people he had just met, he realised, had merely been getting to know his motives better, to assess his heart. Did he pass their test? He believed that he had and now they were willing to help him. Yes, it was very heart-warming to know that there were people, even a hand-full of people, willing to offer succour in one’s secret plight.

  ◆◆◆

  Tweak in the meantime was staring from a window right across the street from where Fabian had been lodging. He sat on a tall stool with a powerful magnifying lens in front of him, and had witnessed Fabian and several odd looking people leaving the stables on horse back.

  ‘Ah!’ he said to himself, ‘the game is once again afoot.’

  Packing away his telescopic lens, he removed his fat little posterior from his stool and dashed towards the door. He would follow them. No doubt Fabian and his new friends were all in this criminal venture together.

  ◆◆◆

  The mages had gathered all their belongings and had planned to leave this town. Only one obstacle—many of the townsfolk did not wish them to leave. Indeed, many of the people were no longer in charge of their own faculties in a manner of speaking.

  Marionettes of the foul Shollom Vi’shiid, they stood at the fence surrounding the town. Farming implements and other household appliances in hand, they barred all departure exits. They no longer appeared alive in the morning sun, but rather dead with sallow flesh and eyes, eyes that were pallid and lifeless.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Fabian asked, starting to sense something was terribly wrong.

  ‘I believe our friends don’t want us to leave.’

  That answer gave little comfort as the mages swiftly made ready for hand to hand combat.

  ‘There’s too many of them!’ Fabian stammered.

  ‘Damn!’ spoke Draethor, grumpily. ‘This is all I need! Especially with my automatonophobia. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of my quarry bed this morning.’

  ‘Get behind me, boy!’ Iron May ordered, taking her place before the prince, shielding him from approaching harm.

  Eerily, the people moved in for the attack. A low guttural hum, almost like a cacophony of moans, filled the air around them. The attackers were slow moving, though decisive in their assaults. One or two made the first move against the mages, but they were put down and subdued before any real harm was done.

  More attacks followed. There was the inn keeper and his chef, neither of them seemed to respond to the sensibilities of those they were compelled to attack. They had one function and one function only: to kill the outsiders.

  ‘Look at them’ Fabian mused. ‘Are they possessed?’

  These were all innocent people once. Fabian couldn’t help but be aware of this troubling fact as he watched Marl, Colonel Warclaw and the others dismember a few of them without a second thought. He kept telling himself that it was all done in self defence, a truly despicable excuse to be certain.

  Fabian suddenly noticed a little girl with a teddy bear gently and cautiously easing her tiny head round the porch of her parent’s house. She called to her parents. Though no one seemed to notice or care all that much. Did the girl even realise that maybe her parents were bewitched, taken hostage, body and soul, by the ghost that had them all in its terrible power?

  The girl ran down the wooden steps and entered the town centre, still calling out for her mommy and daddy.

  At that moment one of the zombies turned and scrutinized the child with a cold, unfeeling gaze.

  ‘No!’ Fabian shouted from behind Iron May. He rushed for the child as May turned and ordered the prince to return to her side. Fabian did not listen. He ran, gathering the little girl in his arms and carried her to safety.

  ‘This is going well’ said May, ironically. ‘First we find the individual we were looking for, and then find out he has no idea how to listen, and now we’re about to be eaten by zombies! Can this day have started any better than it already has?’

  Fabian tried to shield the child from the horror that was evident all around. He pressed her face against his chest, keeping her from seeing the terrible creatures that presented themselves like rodents in a clamber for blood. He said calming things to her as he held her close. As he glanced over his shoulder he didn’t see the drained look in the eyes of the child, that death look which her kinsmen shared at that moment. She looked down at the exposed flesh of Fabian’s arm and instantly went for that flesh. Her teeth were at once sharp, jagged, and her flesh was as sallow as a corpse.

  Fabian noticed her sudden attack just in time. It was reflex more than anything. He simply kicked the child away, sending up dust and gravel as he did so. He had never hurt a child in his life and his sudden reaction both saddened and terrified him all at once. He sat there on the ground and watched the girl/puppet rise up before him. Would he have to dismember her too? The thought disgusted him. He took to his feet and ran for the assembled mages. Clearly they were all outnumbered.

  Colonel Warclaw, armed with the exoskeleton of a Bore Scorpion, took his Sabre of Many Talons and snatched one of the zombies, breaking the creature’s skull with one tight squeeze.

  Iron May slammed her shield cuffs into the gullet of another one of the attackers, bringing her knee guards up between its legs. Her cuffs as well as the shield guards had six inch metal spikes that easily pierced necrotic flesh.

  The mages were being goaded towards the stockade at the perimeter of the city. In the distance a surge of confusion ensued as the attackers turned to witness what was coming up from behind.

  The earth shook. A massive quake turned all attentions to the unseen epicentre.

  A new danger…? The mages could not see for the heaving bodies, but there was something large bringing up the rear.

  Mounds and mounds of clay rose up suddenly like a river of volcanic ash. There were shouts. There were raucous moans. Finally, the world seemed to ingest the unsuspecting townsfolk with a grand and conclusive mouthful. The earth had swallowed them it seemed, like a giant maw, a quicksand, or a graveyard that had come to life to reclaim the animate dead. How this had happened, it could not be said. All this madness had come about in the wink of an eye.

  The mages remained, silenced and numbed by what they had just seen. And again the earth rose, higher than before. Piles of weed, excretions of soil, tree root, and gravel towered upwards like a huge aperture, and then the earth plunged like aggressive
serpents upon the attackers below. More of them were swallowed. The earth took them in and none came back out again.

  As the dust began to settle the mages noted the sudden calm and stillness, and the town without occupants. The zombies, making up a terrifying percentage of the population of this small town, had been inextricably taken.

  One attacker was left however—the child with the teddy. She flailed her limbs awkwardly, her feet strutting two and fro inelegantly, as, with fury, she screamed and retched at the unknown elements that had taken her kind. Her eyes were tiny and vicious. Her mouth, filled with chiselled, dishevelled teeth, foamed and frothed, and was twisted into a tightened grimace. She looked at the mages that were left standing, and with a rabid expression spat at her hated enemies. She didn’t notice the trees and vines coming up out of the ground behind her, not at first.

  She hawked at the mages, expelling vile excretions from her mouth. The animosity in her eyes was in no way any indication of her true emotional state, a mood that was more to do with the puppeteer than the poor child that was being controlled, if indeed there was anything left of the child’s true emotional state. Her tiny frame was driven to hate by the external force that compelled it. Even her eyes, said to be the windows of the soul, did not appear to cry out for help in any way, shape or form. She was completely taken over. But the puppeteer was unaware of the approaching danger.

  The mages watched, unable to intervene. This new terror, it came upon the child marionette. With vines of restraining greenery and thorny limbs the forces at work snatch the tiny girl without any warning. Tree roots, gnarled and tough, seized her arms, and wrapped themselves round her neck. Tree sap oozed from the roots, from the capillaries. More of it issued, seeping out everywhere. The girl struggled. The ochre sap licked her arms and trickled down her legs. There was a loud but transitory cry as the stuff moved over her head, bleeding over her eyes, nose, and then her mouth. Cruel though it seemed, the sap hardened. Like an insect caught in amber, the same metaphor was applied in this case. The girl was instantly pulled back down into the earth with the rest of her kith and kin, never to be seen again.

  Fabian felt his stomach turn. He span round quickly, choking up the remnants of the previous night’s meal, realising that it had been cooked and prepared by these dreadful, though unfortunate creatures.

  All at once the soul of the town fell to silence and desolation. Even the church bell had ceased its chime. It felt like the buildings had remained like this for years, mute as the grave, still as the untouched sepulchres left rotting in the quiet corners of the earth.

  Out of the silence came a sound, like the rustle of wind through tall trees. Yes trees, trees that were not quite trees, but all the same, they appeared humanoid. They walked upright. They had faces carved in wood and were framed, not by beards, but by moss and tiny leaves. These two, the most unusual creatures, appeared. One was a man with skin that was as rough as tree bark. The other was as colourful as the flowers in bloom. He was smaller in stature. Both of them approached the mages, and both had their hands extended in friendship.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Fabian, looking at them strangely.

  ‘Why, don’t you recognise a couple of elemental mages when you see them?’ Justas Marl replied, extending his hand to greet his old friends.

  ‘Elemental mages…?’

  Fabian had never heard of such things. But then, he had not heard of anything that dwelled beyond the humble confines of Mundor. There were indeed stranger and more unusual sights yet to be witnessed it was true.

  The tall, tree-like man introduced himself as Treebon. The other presented himself as the elemental, A-Sap.

  Treebon shuck Marl’s hand. Tiny insects and creatures scurried into the furrows of the creature’s bark-like skin. The top of his head was like a sawn-off stump with a minuscule leaf that seemed to grow out of it like a human hair. A-Sap’s skin on the other hand was covered in a thicket of fern and flower. His head was shaded by a bright red toadstool, adorning his crown like a large sombrero hat.

  Both these elementals had their own unique powers, Marl explained to Fabian. For example, Treebon had the ability to raise the earth, and A-Sap had the capability to encase evil doers in hard amber.

  ‘So what do I owe the pleasure?’ asked Marl curiously. ‘What brings you generally harmless gentlemen out here to these dark and dangerous places?’

  ‘We heard about a disturbance’ replied Treebon. ‘We sensed the return of our ancient enemy.’

  ‘You mean the dragon?’ Marl asked.

  Treebon regarded his friend A-Sap. They both exchanged looks before giving an answer.

  ‘We barely believed the stories we heard. We thought we had seen the last of them, but then seeing is believing.’

  ‘You have seen a real dragon?’ Fabian enquired, starting to wonder at how old these two elemental mages were.

  ‘Of cause’ replied the one called Treebon. ‘Once, many thousands of years ago, dragons lived in these valleys. Of cause, back then, men lived in vast cities, and dwelled in huge buildings that reached the very sky and firmament. It was an era of technology and dragons. Back then, man and dragon lived in harmony, and both man and dragon was our mortal enemy. They cleared entire forests in a bid to expand their territory. Cities rose like huge glass monstrosities, and pollution raged throughout the land.’

  Fabian was at the very moment filled with a desire to hear more. He had never encountered anyone who had lived for over a thousand years. This was a rare, if unexpected opportunity to find out about this world’s buried history. But there were further pressing issues at hand.

  ‘Yes’ the tree went on, ‘we received quite a revelation when we witnessed the dragon enter these regions again. They have been extinct for years now, and the first site of one here, now made us stop and think that maybe something in these lands is preparing to rekindle the past. A terrifying prospect for us elementals as you would no doubt agree. Why, if man ever went back to the old ways…Imagine the devastation, the defoliation!’

  ‘I am sure that isn’t the case’ replied Marl with certainty.

  ‘But it was real, I tell you’ the tree began to stress. ‘Large as life! It flew close to the town, hurling flame from its maw. It journeyed in that direction.’

  Treebon pointed towards the road, and the mountains beyond.

  ‘I did not believe it at first.’

  ‘There is a dragon’ Marl concluded, ‘but not a dragon. That which you witnessed, it is our firm belief, was nothing more than an imposter, a Sinistrom saboteur…a shape-shifter that can alter his appearance to look like a dragon.’

  ‘You cannot be serious! No trickster is that powerful. No mage is that convincing. A man can look like a dragon, though cannot breath fire that hot that it turns metal to ash in seconds. It is but a trick!’

  ‘It is no trick, my friend. The Sinistrom have abilities and weapons unknown to many who merely wield magic. Their knowledge is far older than ours.’

  ‘Well’ spoke Treebon, cautiously, ‘if you are going to chase this creature I hope that you will heed my warning: if you find this dragon or trickster, or whatever it is, please bear in mind that it is still a dragon, and dragons, the most nefarious of their kind, are also the most vicious and perilous. Please take care, my old friend. All of you! Take good care of yourselves!’

  Marl shook hands with Treebon and A-Sap a second time, then the two parties parcelled off in opposite directions. The mages made their lengthy trek along the straight road, while Treebon and A-Sap remained to clear away the death and destruction left behind by the town’s recent occupants.

  Marl explained to Fabian upon leaving that Treebon and A-Sap would stay behind to cleans the ghost town of any remaining evil, and then renew its former beauty. They would plant flowers in the gardens and sow trees in the graveyards. Steadily, but surely, people would come back to the town from distant places and colonise it.

  ‘Soon that evil town will swell with the happy laughter of c
hildren’ he explained at last.

  The prince looked sad as he stroked the long dark tresses of his steed.

  ‘Does this bother you?’ Marl asked.

  Fabian regarded the town as he and the other mages made their way to the outskirts.

  ‘That thing that attacked me…’

  ‘That thing’ Marl continued, ‘was nothing more than an evil aberration, a puppet. There are many dangers, I’ll have you know, Master Fabian, and many of these creatures will not hesitate to use your sentimentality against you. We did the right thing here.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right. I think of those poor people and feel a huge swell of remorse.’

  ‘Those people have been dead now for a long time. Hopefully now they’ll be able to rest peacefully, and do so without evil’s influence. Come, we have a long journey ahead of us.’

  ‘Wait!’ Fabian spoke, pointing to something that had obviously caught his attention. ‘What is that?’

  Marl followed the boy’s gaze to a small object glinting in the sun.

  ‘I see it. I don’t know.’

  Inquisitively, Fabian made his way to where he saw the shiny mass. It was partially concealed amidst tall grass in a thicket surrounded by green hedges. As the boy approached the object began to look more and more familiar. It was metallic and box shaped. Why, it was Tør’s holographic cube emitter, the one he’d shown Fabian during his short stay in Mundor.

  Curiously, Marl observed the boy bring the object back.

  ‘What did you find?’

  Fabian glanced down at the object in his hand.

  ‘Something that belonged to the ambassador.’

  Marl looked at the other mages, and then peered up at the sky.

  ‘It would seem that our good ambassador came this way after all. It also corroborates Treebon’s story. Come!’ he instructed, pulling on the reins of his steed. ‘We have a full day ahead of us and I wish to reach the mountains by nightfall!’

  Fabian placed the device in his pocket and mounted his horse.

  Chapter 8

  Urban Cloud, city in the sky;