Random acts of hardship and the tribulations of the natural world were nothing new to Reachers. The winds seemed to blow harder, rain fall with more gusto, and the seasons generate more pronounced extremes here than anywhere else in the kingdom. Whenever there was a shortage of some raw material or manufactured commodity, here was where it was felt most keenly. As a result, those who lived in the Reaches, by choice or necessity, were a resilient and determined lot with finely-honed survival skills. The current weather, while admittedly harsher than any of the inhabitants had previously experienced, did not faze them. They simply bundled up in their oiled skin cloaks and boots and rode it out.
Not everyone in the Reaches was a native or permanent transplant, however. Perhaps due to its very inhospitability, the area attracted a small number of enthusiastic tourists annually. Mostly these were deep urban types who yearned to escape from the cities for a while, to experience nature in a relatively unspoiled and pristine landscape while still having access to basic conveniences fairly nearby: weekend adventurers, as it were. They were almost always part of a carefully herded tour group. While not overly supportive of the influx of strangers, the Reachers found the considerable income they generated attractive and so made some small accommodation for them.
There were also, of course, a few hardy souls who truly wanted to get away from it all—those with atavistic leanings, paranoid survivalists, hermits, fugitives, and even a few out and out crazies. They were for the most part loners, fiercely independent and rabidly protective of their homesteads, such as they were. The natives knew to leave these folks alone; encounters were few and far between. Tourists occasionally ran afoul of the Wilders, as Reach inhabitants called them, but so far no serious trouble had erupted as a result.
Ballop’ril was a bugbear. That alone made him something of an outcast, as there were only a few scattered settlements of that species in Tragacanth. Bugbears, with their odd guttural language and even odder social customs, were difficult for the other races to understand; misunderstanding inevitably breeds mistrust. Consequently, in many places bugbears were automatic social pariahs, a distinction that did nothing to conventionalize their somewhat bizarre world views.
This particular bugbear had been some distance from the cave he called home foraging for his favorite snack, fleggen worms, when the rains struck. The water came down with such ferocious intensity that the path leading back to his grotto became a raging torrent in short order, so raging that he was unable to trudge his way home against the current. He cursed the weather roundly and stumbled down the hill as the stream that had been his garden path swept him along before tons of water, mud, and debris. The flood finally deposited him, bruised and waterlogged, at the bottom of the hill. He wasn’t exactly in high humor. When a few seconds later it became apparent he was also now more or less trapped, by dint of multiple mudslides in all directions, in the middle of a major highway, Ballop’ril’s disposition began to sour.
It was at this point that Kurg’s pram came chugging around the bend. Kurg and Hnuppa were both busy ogling the huge mass of water and splintered timber that was cascading down the hill, threatening to overflow the roadway as it crashed headlong into an overburdened culvert. Kurg totally failed to see Ballop’ril until the bugbear was scarcely three meters from the pram—the heavy rain and mist rising from the road would have obscured him even if he weren’t only a little over a meter tall and the same color as the mud. Swerving madly, Kurg careened up onto a guardrail, actually drove with one wheel skirting it for a few meters, then dumped the pram fairly gently over on its side. It slid to a halt, pirouetting on its door handle a few times as an encore to the soggy automotive ballet.
Ballop’ril, who dove out of the way at the last second, picked himself up and pointlessly wiped the pouring rain off his fuzzy forehead. He walked over to where Kurg and Hnuppa were extricating themselves from the crippled vehicle.
“Peers as though you boys had yerselves an accident,” he said flatly, rain dripping from the matted hair tufts shading his ample ears.
Kurg glared at him in silence for a full ten seconds, soaking wet, thoroughly disheveled, and bleeding from a respectable laceration engendered by a chance meeting between his cheek and the shattered windshield.
Hnuppa expected a blistering barrage of invective from his boss, but Kurg merely continued to glare malevolently at the bugbear as he gathered up his scattered notepads and equipment. Maybe he was too angry and shaken to verbalize, although if so this represented the first time Hnuppa had witnessed such an occasion. He would have opened a bottle of vintage razzle in celebration if he had one. None was available, however, so he settled for watching the show in saturated bemusement.
“Why are you just standing around?” Kurg snapped at him abruptly, like a domestic scrubhound suddenly made aware of a rodentcatcher on his backyard fence. “Get the cameras and your other junk and let’s get out of this smekking rain.”
Hnuppa surveyed their surroundings, blinking against the hydrological onslaught. “How do you propose to do that, exactly?”
“Easy. I’ve got the Amulet of Dryness that mage in Dresmak gave me.”
“You mean the one who told you never to darken his doorway again, even if he were dying and you were the only living creature who could help him?”
“Um, yeah, I think that was the one.”
Hnuppa grimaced. “I’m just gonna step over here for a moment.”
“Wimp.”
“Let’s just say I have a robust survival instinct.”
Kurg made a rude noise with his lips and pulled out the amulet. It was an intricately worked silver arc, beneath which were three copper spheres suspended by fine chains. He squinted at the activation phrase, etched on the rear of the medallion.
“Yestwe collnud meshwa resnam,” he chanted unconvincingly.
Nothing happened, except the rainfall rate seemed to increase a bit. Ballop’ril, who was too far away to understand what was happening, chose this moment to shake himself like a dog, spraying bugbear-flavored rainfall all over the already saturated Kurg.
Kurg scowled even more deeply and shook the amulet, as though to wake it up. Hnuppa chuckled. “I don’t think you’re doing something right.”
“Brilliant deduction, detective. Maybe I wasn’t forceful enough. Yestwe collnud meshwa resnam!”
It suddenly began to hail. Pea-sized, at first, but the plummeting orbs of ice were gradually increasing in diameter as the three of them scrambled for shelter in the wrecked pram.
“Are you sure that thing is a dryness amulet?” Hnuppa yelled over the hailstone barrage.
“That’s what what’s-his-name told me. I suppose he could have been pulling my leg.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me. If I recall, he wanted to pull your legs clean off at the time.”
“Show it to me,” commanded Ballop’ril. Kurg growled. “What does a bugbear know about magic amulets?”
“One may as easily ask, ‘what does a goblin know of them?’ Obviously nothing.” Ballop’ril replied.
While Kurg worked this one out, the bugbear coaxed the amulet from his grasp. He stared at it for a moment, then, holding it tightly in his right hand, chanted.
“Resnam meshwa collnud yestwe.”
A bluish radiance leapt from the amulet, slowly spreading until a hemisphere formed over them, repelling all rain and hail in a three-meter diameter.
Ballop’ril smiled a toothy smile and handed the talisman back to Kurg.
“Inscribed incantations are read right to left. That’s Magic 101; glad I could be of service, oh great and powerful mage.”
Kurg glared at him from under his bushy eyebrows for a few moments, and then began to make a repetitive gasping noise. At first it gave the impression that he was softly gagging, but then Hnuppa recognized that the sound was not of Kurg choking, but rather his peculiar way of chuckling. Kurg was amused by the cheeky bugbear.
The chuckle escalated to a full-fledged guffaw. Laughter is, as a
rule, easily communicable amongst nearly all sentient species. This rule ordinarily fell flat on its pimply face when applied to Kurg, however, as his expressions of mirth were barely recognizable as such, not to mention as a general rule altogether unpleasant to experience. Ballop’ril was not put off by Kurg’s odd laugh, though, and soon he lent his own throaty tenor to the opera. Appalled by the sudden cacophony, Hnuppa retreated to the far perimeter of the magical barrier and tried to find something to stuff in his ears. Fortunately, before he could seriously contemplate damaging his aural apparatus, the noise died down and the two jocularists gazed at one another with dawning affection.
Hnuppa noticed the upgrade in diplomatic relations and wasn’t happy about it—Kurg was difficult enough on his own. As part of a duet he could be well-nigh impossible. He rolled his eyes.
“I hate to put a damper on the party, but we need to figure out how we’re getting out of here. And someone still has to pick up Selpla and company.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” Kurg fumbled with his comm. “Bewlie?
Bewlie, can ya hear me? Confound it, what’s wrong with this smekkin’ thing?”
“I think the freaky weather and this magical shield together are interfering with the signal,” Hnuppa said, “Try switching to ‘arcane’ mode.”
“Whuzzat?”
Hnuppa sighed, “Main Menu>Options>Mode
>Arcane. It uses magic to heterodyne the radio frequency transmission and boost it.”
Kurg punched at his comm until it took on a faint orange glow. He looked pleased with himself. “There. Got it.”
“Yer a reg’lar jene-yus,” Ballop’ril chimed in.
Hnuppa frowned. “Yikes. Don’t encourage him.”
The bugbear grinned at him.
“Bewlie? Bewlie, this is Kurg. We had a little setback on the road. The pram’s gonna have to have some, uh, work. Yes, this one, too. I need you to send someone down with the remote broadcast dray to get us. No, I haven’t made it to Selpla yet. Yes, it’s still raining. No, we’re sort of dry: I used an amulet. A dryness amulet. No, he’s fine. Listen, tell whoever to get his rear in gear. We’re just north of Dreadmost, on the main road. Hard to miss.”
During Kurg’s conversation, Ballop’ril had been fidgeting with something in his pocket. Hnuppa noticed a pronounced bulge in that location, but he wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been there before, so he said nothing. Bugbears weren’t known as thieves, particularly—not that he knew much about them at all, of course.
“Looks like we’ve got an hour or two to kill,” Kurg reported. “What shall we do, play a game?” He clapped his rather misshapen hands together in a childlike way.
Hnuppa cocked his head and peered inquisitively at Kurg. It was sometimes hard to tell if his boss was kidding. “Capital idea,” he enthused sardonically, “Let’s play ‘spot the brain cell.’ I’ll go first.” He shielded his eyes with one hand and made a half circle, as though scanning the horizon. “I got nothin,’” he said, shaking his head and making an exaggerated sad face.
Ballop’ril started laughing at this bon mot; at least that’s what Hnuppa assumed he was doing. Kurg wasn’t laughing with him this time, though. He was staring in stunned amazement at something over Hnuppa’s right shoulder.
Hnuppa noticed Kurg’s odd behavior after a few seconds and swiveled around, following his gaze. His initial impression was that a new mountain had somehow formed behind them—he was relatively certain there hadn’t been one there previously. There could be no debate over its existence now, however. As Kurg continued to gape, Hnuppa couldn’t help but think that he’d seldom, if ever, seen his boss at a loss for words.
It became apparent after a minute or so of gawking that this was not a sedentary topological feature but in fact an animate object. It moved toward them visibly, albeit gradually, the lower half of it undulating slightly as it progressed. The occasional bouncing boulder or small rock slide punctuated the behemoth’s slow and deliberate movements.
Hnuppa glanced over at Kurg. He still seemed disinclined or unable to speak, so Hnuppa decided to take the reins.
“What is that?” It was not a profoundly-worded question, but it needed to be asked.
“Don’t you worry none. It’s for me.” The reply came from the bugbear, about whose presence Hnuppa had momentarily forgotten.
Both Hnuppa and Kurg turned to stare at him.
“What the smek do you mean, it’s ‘for you’?” Kurg exploded, his dumbness apparently having finally worn off.
“I mean,” Ballop’ril explained calmly, “That I summoned it. Well, not so much ‘summoned’ as arranged to have it meet me here. It’s under geas to find me.”
This was obviously too much for Kurg. His mouth slammed shut and he sat heavily in a puddle, splashing Hnuppa up to the knees. The dryness amulet clearly had no influence over water already inside its effect radius.
“Let me get this straight: you placed a mountain under geas?” asked Hnuppa incredulously, wiping his soaked pants without much efficacy.
“Yeah. I live in that mountain and I’m sort of a homebody, see? I figured if I’m ever more than a kilometer from home, I’m probably lost. So I put a geas on my home to come and find me when that happens.”
“OK, ten out of ten for convenience, but an entire mountain? Why not just enchant some object to lead you back—a wooden avian or whatever?” His eyes suddenly narrowed, “Where did you get a magical artifact of sufficient power to do this, anyway? I’ve never seen an enchantment on this scale in person before.”
“It weren’t no artifact, at all. It were a spell I conjured up on me own.”
“You cast a geas that affected an entire mountain?” Hnuppa was torn by skepticism on the one hand and the incontrovertible evidence of his eyes on the other.
“Yep, I did.” It was a matter-of-fact reply, and Ballop’ril apparently felt no need to explain further. The bugbear turned and headed off up the newly-arrived versant, leaving Hnuppa unsatisfied and sputtering. He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.
“I just recognized that guy,” Kurg said, softly. “That was Ballop’ril of Qoplebarq.”
It took a few seconds for the name to register, then a few more to overcome the incredulity. “Ballop’ril?” Hnuppa finally managed to squeak out, “Shouldn’t he be dead by now? He was an old legend when I was in school.”
“You’d think so. However, I suppose when you’re the only bugbear ever to reach Magineer status, you have ways to keep yourself from growing old at the usual pace. How long do bugbears normally live, anyway?”
“He wasn’t actually a Magineer, though.”
“He never officially held the office, no. But the Council agreed that he was qualified, despite not being a goblin. He just decided not to commit himself to a life of being in the constant spotlight, I guess.”
“Hmm. Teacher told us he was involved in something that the Council didn’t feel was proper for a Magineer, and that’s why he was asked not to accept the position.”
“As far as I know, the only unsavory activity he was involved in was simply being a bugbear in the first place. That in itself was enough to give the Council heartburn. They’re pretty conservative when it comes to any race but goblins occupying the magineer positions.”
“Maybe we should have asked him give us his side of the story.”
Kurg stared thoughtfully at the lumbering mountain receding in the distance. “Something tells me he wouldn’t have been happy about that,” he replied finally.
The rain was intensifying. Flooding on a massive scale seemed imminent, but Kurg and Hnuppa didn’t see much they could do about it. They found the highest ground that still allowed them to watch the roadway and hunkered down, trying not to slip in the mud. The amulet kept rain from soaking them directly, but it didn’t stop runoff water cascading down on them from higher elevations. Hnuppa was thinking about the lowlands that lay around Dreadmost.
“I hope we can actually get to Se
lpla when the dray does finally make it.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“The water’s pretty deep even here. It looks like it’s all been coming up from the south, too. It’s liable to be seriously flooded down Dreadmost way. The roads may not even be passable.”
“I don’t care if the roads are open or not. We’ve got to get Selpla and her crew back.”
“I had no idea you were so gung-ho about the wellbeing of your employees. Maybe I’ve been misjudging you all this time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurg snapped, taken aback, “Selpla has footage that we need for the weekend broadcast, and I won’t have time to string together enough stock if we don’t get it from her.”
Hnuppa grinned. “Ah, good. My world view is still intact.”
“What the smek is that supposed to mean?” Kurg sounded more ticked off than Hnuppa would have expected. He must be stressed by their run of bad fortune.
“Nothing. Hey, look: here comes the dray!” What excellent timing. He owed whoever was driving a pint of razzle for helping him dodge a Kurg-shaped bullet.
The driver to whom the pint of razzle was owed turned out to be a lugubrious old gaffer named Slud. Most of the time he was a shadowy denizen of the labyrinthine catwalks above and below the studio sound stages, but occasionally he ran errands for Bewlie. Dreadmost was probably a little further than he was accustomed to driving on these clerical excursions, but this was something of an emergency, after all.
The dray clattered to a halt in the dead center of a large puddle, making it impossible to get to any of the doors without wading. It was a large and rather cumbersome-looking vehicle, originally designed to hold all the equipment for remote broadcasting but now refitted with bench seats and used primarily to cart investors and major advertisers to and from the overland carriage station and hotels during their periodic visitations. These visitations—which were really more akin to inspections—Kurg was fond of claiming were the principal reason for his ever-growing ulcer collection (goblins have complex stomachs with up to six chambers, so there’s plenty of room). He motioned for Slud to pull forward out of the pond, but the old goblin ignored him. Throwing up his hands in disgust, Kurg slogged through the dirty water toward the dray, followed closely by Hnuppa, who was chuckling as quietly as he could. It wasn’t quietly enough.
Goblinopolis, The Tol Chronicles, Book 1 Page 12