Coe Pidaria

by Courtney Bowen

  ***

  Doomba rode on across the plains, his whole army arranged behind him, ranks of men on horseback and on foot, followed by his monsters at the back. The monsters drove on the men in some ways, for if any of the men tried to desert or fell behind, then they were certain to receive a crushing blow from a Trolla lumbering past, or be pierced by the slithering sword of a Ghoulman from on top of his Ghoulmount.

  Doomba called down one of the gruelmoffs flying high above, and told the bird, “I would like to remind my Servants that they cannot kill every man in our service.” He spoke in a sinister, serious voice. “Much as it pains me to look upon their countenance, and see their cowardliness and weakness, these Followers of Doomba are still necessary to reinforce our strength and be the first line of defense. They will be the first to fall as human shields, for the people of Coe Pidaria to waste their arrows and stones upon, the strength of their arms and the sharpness of their steel, for those men who are cut down will make way for each Servant behind them to push forward, and take advantage of those people weakened in defense.”

  He sent the gruelmoff off with his message and then settled back in his saddle, pleased with himself as he saw Coe Pidaria loom closer and closer with every mile that they took. The great city would be his to destroy and his to conquer, to make his seat of power as the City of Elders would have been, if he had been allowed to take control.

  Arria had power, possibly more power than Corrica had ever known when magic, fantastical creatures like unicorns and dragons, and the Fay were unheard of in his old world. He intended to take control of Arria and use its power to change the country to suit his own purposes.

  If it was true that Tau’s Cup, the ancient relic of life and power housed within Coe Pidaria’s walls, was the instrument used by the god Tau to create humans, then surely he had just as much right as anyone, including the king, to use it; for the device belonged to him as much as anyone who was human. Even though the humans had done much with that relic, and he was not quite human anymore, yet he had been born a human, and now reborn, he could do more with that instrument than all of the rest for being more than human.

  Yet as Doomba and his army reached the final mile, with the wall now looming above them and the spires out of sight in the clouds of nightfall, something happened. He was about to call upon the men to charge, and break down the gate with their battering rams before he would call upon the Trollas, when the wall seemed to shrink back. The gruelmoffs, who were circling above and prepared to dive down and attack the men on the walls, instead diverted back to the main force of the army.

  He practically stood up in his saddle, and the shadows swirling about him seemed to part for an instant so that he could get a better look at the wall himself. Now collapsing inward, the wall was dragged backward in a storm of magic and mayhem toward a central point, the vortex of which seemed to contain more and more of the heart of Coe Pidaria itself. He roared in anger as the great city retreated from him, the spires that had once been so tall now folding in upon each other. The gleaming center of the storm grew brighter and brighter until he could not stand to look upon it.

  He advanced, though, his shadows covering him from the light as they also extended outward to try and contain, encroach upon the light of the magical storm. But the light would not be touched, it only retreated faster and faster.

  Suddenly, the wall of Coe Pidaria hardened and grew; spinning upward in a flash to surround the light, it formed a shell, while the spires that had been coming together into a central column sprang apart at the top, forming branches and leaves…Doomba stared in horror as Coe Pidaria was transformed into a tree.

  Yet it was not just any tree, it was a tree as large as the city had been, its trunk round and thick, wide across in all dimensions; over a mile across in diameter, and at least that tall above, if not higher. For the branches formed a thick canopy above the trunk, outspread in length and height with a forest of leaves displayed, and it was difficult to tell just how far the branches spread in the clouds.

  The tree stood alone in the wilderness where Coe Pidaria had been when the process was done, surrounded by an army that had been intent on destroying the great city itself. Doomba had been unable to stop the process, for his powers had been warded off by the shield of the city itself. Now he rode forward, while the rest of his army watched, and tried to send his shadows forth to enter the trunk, for there must be a way to reach the city inside.

  However, the shadows could not pierce it; it was thick and solid, as real as anything that existed, yet even more impenetrable to the shades who could pass through anything that they wanted, except for this. He got off of his horse, and strode forward, probing the trunk himself as he felt its earthiness, its thick wood that did not seem to splinter in his hand. He unsheathed his sword, and tried to stab it, but the point would not enter; he called upon his Trollas to uproot the tree.

  The monsters lumbered forward, and all together they tried to push, and shake the tree loose from the ground, but the tree would not budge, it remained firmly rooted. The Trollas roared, howled, and grunted, yelling at themselves and at the tree itself. He called upon his men and Ghoulmen to use their axes, their swords, their knives, anything and everything sharp they had to cut and tear down the tree, but not a dent was made into the trunk and many of these weapons were thrown aside, useless and worn. The men, frustrated, began to look about as if they might run when night was long and dark, and the moon and stars were far away from here on this night.

  The gruelmoffs came down, and one of them, in a grating, screechy voice, said, “We saw no men standing upon the walls when the attack began.”

  “What do you mean?” Doomb asked. “Of course there should have been men on the walls, if they were trying to defend…”

  “There was no sign of anybody on the wall, or out on the streets, and if there had been, we would have seen them.” The gruelmoff insisted. “Our eyes are sharper than any other bird’s, that’s why you made us.”

  “What about within the buildings?” Doomba asked. “Did you see any movement?”

  “There was only some movement in the distance.” The gruelmoff said, recalling what had been noticed by him and his kind. “There was some movement within a building near the center of the city, possibly in the castle complex, a building of white marble, with statues of warriors and wizards.”

  “The wizards…” Doomba muttered, the shadows swirling about him. “The Warriors of Wudak! Only they could have done such a thing, with the powers that the Fay had given them.” He stared up at the tree, and decided to try one last time. “Gruelmoffs, fly up to the branches and try to break them, rip them off so that at least some part of this tree might be torn asunder! The branches are the weakest part!”

  The gruelmoffs went, and did as they were bid, but claws and beaks could not rip nor torn asunder the very branches. Even the smallest leaves from these branches could not be pulled loose, so fast and firm were they attached to the very tree; the tree remained unshakeable. Firmly planted, and firmly undisturbed, the tree was perfect, unspoiled, like Coe Pidaria had been. The army stood there, monstrous Servants and manly Followers alike, panting with exhaustion when, despite all of their efforts, nothing had changed; nothing had worked.

  He wanted to scream. Doomba wanted…he roared; all of the monsters and all of the men turned towards him. As Doomba stood there, in the middle of the wilderness, he roared and raged with anger and frustration as the shadows leapt forth and scattered. Across the plains, the shades soared over the landscape and then buried themselves deep into the earth, rumbling with the same anger and frustration.

  After all of these years, after all of his efforts, men would have wept, and children would have cried, but Doomba would have been victorious as he marched into Coe Pidaria, and taken control of it all. He thought to himself that now it would never be, yet it had to be, it had to be!

  Doomba was revealed, and the men amongst his ranks paled in horror; but now the earth shoo
k with the shadows that occupied it. The monsters and the men felt it alike, and trembled, as far in the distance, miles away, a portion of the earth rose. Mountains and mountains, jagged peaks like teeth and fangs, rose up out of the ground and closed off part of the plains, the land surrounding what once had been Coe Pidaria, forever more from the rest of the world. Then, closer to the plain upon which Doomba stood, a lone edifice rose and erupted; lava surged out of the opening in the earth. Fire and ash and smoke billowed up into the sky that had darkened with night, obscuring the stars and the moon coming out, as lava spread across the plains. The shadows were spreading.

  The monsters and men fled, most of the men dying from the fire, the choking ash, and the stampede of their forces. Only a few survived, and made it out of the Wastelands that these plains had become.

  At least the monsters were luckier; the Trollas could not melt away, no matter how hot it became. They might dissolve when consumed by lava, but being made of stone, they reshaped themselves into their old forms after awhile when everything had cooled off. However, most of the Trollas went out of the Wastelands, and terrorized the surrounding country.

  The Ghouls, Ghoulmen and Ghoulmounts, had tough, lizardly skins that withstood the hottest temperatures. Though they weren’t exactly fireproof, they took to occupying the highest points, out of the way of the stream of lava flowing beneath them, and managed to survive in dormant hibernation. However, a few of them were restless, and could not sleep, so they followed the Trollas and took to attacking bands of human settlements.

  The gruelmoffs, meanwhile, took off into the sky and flew as high as they could above the fire and the ash. They fled to distant places, but keeping a fair eye out for what was happening, they returned after awhile. Still, they managed to see much as well in the human world, and spotted chances to strike fear into the hearts of men.

  Doomba, however, stayed where he was as the lava flowed about him, melting what little remained of his human form except for the skeleton; the skeleton remained intact, frozen to its core. He stayed in that spot and stared at the tree. But the tree did not burn, nor did it collapse, and neither did it disintegrate even with all of that lava surrounding it; it remained perfectly unspoiled, untouched by the forces of nature.