by Greg Curtis
But he had to do something! Hendrick drew his dimensional blade and drove it deep through the stone carapace of the giant crab he was standing on. It came back coated in green blood. The carapace on the Queen's back had to be two feet or more thick judging from the six inches of green on the end of the blade. As such it was far too thick for even the parrots to crack, but his blade had no such limitation.
The Queen shuddered, a violent shaking that almost threatened to knock him off, and instantly the hundreds or thousands of other crabs surrounding him stopped dead. They stopped digging their way out of the ground. Those that were out stopped advancing on him. Everything came to a complete halt.
A few seconds later Hendrick did the same, and had his beasts curb their attack. He didn't fully know why he did it save that it felt right. And it occurred to him that the Queen may have called some sort of truce. Her life had been threatened and she had surrendered. Could she be intelligent enough to understand the idea?
But what did he do about it? He didn't want to kill the Queen – assuming that that was what she was. Not if she was intelligent. But if it wasn't a truce or she changed her mind he didn't want to be killed while he was running away either.
And then it occurred to him. He was up high. Twenty feet or so off the ground. He could long step some considerable distance because there was nothing in the way. As long as he steered clear of the mounds of earth all over the place – and the holes – he should be fine. In theory.
“Any advice?” He turned not to Val but rather the bronze people who were standing there staring back at him. They looked on somewhat curiously, but didn't seem particularly concerned. They never did. Naturally they didn't answer him.
Nervous but knowing it was what he had to do, Hendrick unsummoned the blade – he didn't want to tumble with something that sharp in his hands – arranged his gear more tightly around him and then took a deep breath. Then he looked forward as far as he thought he could and stepped off with his right foot.
The world blurred as it always did, before he put his left foot down on the yellow grass. But his foot didn’t land quite straight and he promptly fell on his arse.
Bumped and bruised but too scared to worry about the pain, Hendrick got up quickly, and checked to see how far away he'd got. He feared it wasn't far enough. Three hundred, perhaps four hundred yards behind him he could see the Queen. But all around him he could see mounds of earth and holes. There were at least another hundred yards of them. He had no idea how many of them were fresh.
Desperate, Hendrick started running, realising that he didn't want to be caught out on his own in the middle of a field of stone crabs, while trying to hold his nerve. If he gave into his fear the panthers would know. That would be very bad.
Ten, maybe twenty strides into his run he felt the rumble that he knew was the roar of the Queen. But what she was screaming he couldn't begin to know. Her thanks maybe? Or a call to attack? He redoubled his efforts, wishing that he was a faster runner, and sent for the panthers to run with him.
Twenty or thirty strides later he was joined by his beasts but still surrounded by mounds of dirt, some of which were growing as the stone crabs pushing their way up. The truce it seemed, was over. But looking ahead he could also see that he was also at the end of the zone of the mounds. A few more strides took him past the last of them and suddenly he could breathe again.
After that he slowed his frantic dash, taking several gulps of air even as he thanked the gods that he had escaped. But also wondering once more, who would carve writings into the carapace of a giant crab. It was a joke surely? The sort of jest the Goat Footed God would play on innocents.
Maybe a hundred yards further along he stopped and turned around to stare back at the crabs. He knew by then that he was safe. The panthers would have warned him if there were any crabs approaching. But what he saw surprised him.
They weren't chasing him at least. Instead the crabs had all gathered by the Queen, forming, he guessed, a protective barrier around her. It seemed she had her own personal guard. Some of them were busy righting their upturned comrades, almost as soldiers would help pick up their fallen friends. Some were milling around the bodies of their dead friends. Others were climbing over their Queen, almost as though they were trying to treat her injury. It looked, for want of a better term, very human. And he had to wonder – just how intelligent were they? He asked Val.
“You think intelligence has to walk on two legs?”
Hendrick didn't answer him, mostly because he suspected his friend was right. Instead he turned around again, and walked back to his departure point, flanked by thirty spectral panthers, half a dozen spectral parrots, three living, bronze statues and a floating part mammoth, part hedgehog and part human head.
If anyone saw them he thought, they'd stop and stare. They might even wonder who exactly was the one in charge. Some days he wondered that himself.
But at least he had achieved a part of his mission. Maybe half of the writings engraved on the Queen crab's back had been copied on to parchment. And that he thought, had to be enough. Because he was never coming back!
Chapter Twenty Three
Rain had finally returned to the city, for which Marnie was glad, even though her boots kept getting stuck in the mud, making her walk like a decrepit old sot with two left feet. At least it brought some relief from the heat. Of course it was also going to add to the time and cost involved in repairing the barracks she had chosen as the new home for their people in the city.
It was old and weathered. Beaten down by time and the elements. Since the riders it had once housed had left for their new barracks, no one had bothered to maintain the buildings. The stable roof had collapsed completely. Many of the weather-boards on the main building were rotted through. Most of the windows were filled with broken glass. The east wall was leaning, suggesting something seriously wrong with the foundations. And the land around it was filled with weeds as high as her head.
To add to that the barracks was surrounded by alehouses, inns, gambling dens and houses of iniquity. It seemed that once the soldiers had moved out the patrons of those establishments had moved in. Beggars, sots, ladies of the night plying their trade, young cut-purses and waifs and street urchins by the score. And they had made a mess of the buildings. For a start, once the plumbing had failed they'd started using the overgrown gardens for their bodily functions. Clearing the people out had been easy enough. Cleaning up after them would be much more difficult. And the smell was terrible.
Still, the ground floor of the main building could hold sixty people, as could the first floor once it had been made liveable. And once the stables were converted into habitable quarters, she thought maybe another hundred could be bedded down in them. As well as that it was inside the city walls and relatively close to the Temple. And though the neighbours weren’t quite what she would have wanted, there wasn't another building she could find in the entire city which would do. She tried to explain that to Tyrollan as he strolled the grounds with her.
“I believe you.” He smiled, more out of politeness than happiness she suspected. “It was just that I was hoping for something a little … better.”
“We aren't the royals. We can't just evict lessor nobles from their homes!” Though she would have quite liked to. Some of them more than others.
“Well I like it,” Hendrick announced. “It needs work, but it'll meet our needs. We should buy it and get the tradesmen to start work immediately.”
Marnie looked at him in surprise. She didn't like it when Hendrick agreed with her. It always made her feel as though she'd overlooked something very basic. Even when she realised she hadn't, she still found herself wondering if he was patronising her. He was of noble blood after all and she was just the afflicted daughter of a poor farmer. Hedge born. For once though, she caught her tongue and said nothing.
“We'll need some stynes first.” Tyrollan quickly pointed out the obvious. “The King will provide?”
“He
doesn't need to. This should help.” Hendrick abruptly pulled a lump of rock out of his pack, and handed it to him. It was the size of his fist, and filled with veins of gold. “I found it while I was exploring.”
Marnie stared at the rock in disbelief, and for a moment or two wondered if she had lost her mind. She'd never seen a chunk of gold like that before. She'd never even heard tales of nuggets that large. And he had been carrying it around in his pack? Any normal man would be singing and dancing in the streets at having found it. Yet he seemed completely unaffected by it. What in all the hells was wrong with him?! Ri Altenne had granted him a wondrous gift in world walking if it meant he now had access to large amounts of gold. But it seemed Vitanna had stolen his wits away with his mist.
“The world with the temple crabs?” Eventually she found something to say instead of simply staring at the lump of gold with her mouth hanging open. Something that sounded almost rational. Marnie wasn't sure that she believed that particular story of his. Or any of his stories. He might not be a complete muck-spout, but of all the tall tales she’d heard that one struck her as extremely unlikely. Crabs that were temples? That burrowed through the ground like worms? It had to be the work of Vitanna's mist.
On the other hand, a rock that large filled with thick veins of gold – it represented more wealth than she'd ever seen in her entire life. You could buy a castle with that and all the servants you could ask for. Where could he possibly have got it from?
“No, praise Vitanna! I'm never going back there! Another one. And there are plenty more rocks like it. I may need to borrow a pick though.”
“I'm sure we can spare one,” Tyrollan answered him calmly.
Or at least he was trying to appear calm while he held in his hands more wealth than a school master would see in a lifetime, Marnie thought. Maybe this latest episode would make Tyrollan see she was right about Hendrick. That there was something just not right in his head. No one simply handed over wealth like that!
Eventually Marnie put the lump of gold ore out of her mind and began making plans for the purchase and repair of the property. After a while though she became aware that Tyrollan wasn't listening to her. Or even looking at her. Instead he was staring straight past her as if she wasn't even there.
“Tyrollan?” Marnie didn't get a response from him. Seeing the look of shock creeping over his face, however she turned around to see where he was looking.
“Shite!”
It was Marnie's turn to stop and stare – again. But this time it wasn't another lump of gold ore that stole her thoughts away. There was a woman made of bronze staring at her. Actually there were two women and a man, but the other two were standing a little further back.
“Hendrick?” Eventually she managed to find her wits and ask the question. But she didn't take her eyes off the bronze people. She couldn't.
“They must have followed me back,” he told her casually.
“Uh huh?” Three living bronze statues were wandering around, and that was all he could think to say?! Marnie was sure she should question him further. But for the life of her she just couldn't think of anything. Instead she just stood there and stared at the bronze people who in turn were inspecting her and Tyrollan.
“Ignore them. I do. They're not really here after all. It's just a visage,” Hendrick told them as if it was completely normal. Maybe it was for him. “And they don't do anything other than watch what I do and follow me around.”
“Anyway, you've found a good place for us. My vote is that we buy it immediately and start the repairs. But it’s your decision. I have to go.”
“Where? Tyrollan asked. But his attention clearly wasn't on the conversation.
“Back to the garden. It's been five days and I need to get some more spells. I might try for three again this time.”
“Alright then.” Tyrollan let him go without protest, his eyes like his thoughts clearly only on the bronze people.
Marnie wondered if she should say something. They'd agreed to ten spells, two at a time at his request, and once again Hendrick was breaking the rules. At the very least it looked bad. But even as she thought about objecting she couldn't really take her eyes off the visitors. They in turn had moved on from staring at them, to studying the barracks, and had just walked through the walls to see what was inside. So she said nothing as Hendrick wandered off. But really she thought, she'd had too many shocks for one day. She just had to hope there weren't any more coming.
“Tyrollan?” In time she found her wits returning to her.
“Yes?”
“You know it's going to cause a panic when people see these bronze people wandering around the city? Just as it does every time his disembodied friend appears. And the gold is going to cause trouble too.” Her words were proven true a few moments later when she heard a cry from somewhere outside the barracks. The bronze people had already started exploring it seemed.
“I know.” Tyrollan managed a tired sigh, his face a mask of resignation.
“Well I was thinking. Hendrick's going to keep doing things like this. You know that don't you?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, would it really be so wrong if we just shot him?!” It seemed like the reasonable thing to do after all.
It was a considerable length of time before Marnie got an answer from him.
“I'll have to think about it!”
Chapter Twenty Four
It was a pleasant afternoon to be out in the sun. Fall might finally be beginning to make its presence felt on the land, but the afternoon sun still had plenty of heat left in it. And it was even better when he was outside the city walls. Far from the people who wanted to ask him a thousand questions, or make him agree to whatever new bargain they wanted to strike. He didn't want to strike any deals! Didn't they understand that?!
Hendrick was beginning to think that he should never have brought that gold back with him. It had been necessary, and it had paid for the barracks and the score of workmen who were now toiling away on it. But of all the things he had done, it was the gold that had caused the greatest strife. Who would have thought such a thing?!
The bronze people continued to wander the city streets, causing some surprise and even consternation – they seemed to have no understanding of privacy. But people had become used to them. The translations from the two temples he had visited had kept the scholars and priests up at all hours as they argued over what they meant. But they mostly didn't bother him. He was no sage after all. He was also aware that his plans to bring the gifted to the city to train them and one day transform them into a guild, would upset the natural order in time. But Marnie and Tyrollan had those matters in hand and again most of those who arrived didn't bother him.
But arrive with four pounds of gold, and suddenly every merchant, every money lender, every noble and everyone else with greed in their heart, was at his door. There was no peace. Not for him. Which was why he was sitting on a grassy embankment outside the city walls, meditating.
Was it working? Was it driving away the soul of the long dead wizard, leaving him with only the magic? Hendrick couldn't decide. Some days he thought it was as he worked studiously at it. Other days he thought it was a complete waste of time. He and Val both thought it should work. But they would only know once they saw the markings on his skin fade. The trouble was that he had so many of them. And he kept adding to them every five days.
Now his entire left arm was covered in sparkling grey traceries. His finger nails were all coloured. The lines ran up both the inside and the outside of his arm all the way to his shoulder, while others took a longer path either up his chest or neck. One of them dived down around his belly for some reason. He was the most heavily marked of all the gifted. Soon he thought, they would be creeping up his face. How could he tell if some of those lines were becoming a little fainter when there were so many more of them covering them?
Still, he worked at it every day for at least an hour. He practising every spell he had, concent
rating on every part of the spell, trying to make it a part of him rather than an echo of a long dead wizard's soul. And if nothing else he thought his casting was becoming better. Now he barely had to even think to cast many of his spells as they came so easily. His control was also far greater than it had been.
Oddly, no one seemed to be complaining about the fact that he was still acquiring spells. He would have thought someone would. After all it was unfair that he had agreed to a limit placed on everyone else when he now had nearly twice that number. But for the most part the others seemed to accept his reasoning. That he was a world walker and as such regularly wandering into dark and dangerous places on his own. Or maybe they simply didn't care? For most of them ten spells was more than they had ever dreamed possible. And it wasn't as if there was any shortage of spells for the number of volunteers willing to receive them. Presently each of the bins filled with magic metals had been filled and they were now working on filling the second. There were vastly more spells than there were volunteers to accept them.