“Here you are,” she said. “Julia is about to find the location of the last wife and she needs your map.”
I went with Gnaria. Julia was at the beach. She had told us some days ago to leave her alone so that she could focus entirely on finding the location of the last wife, which was by no means an easy process.
Julia was drawing random shapes on the sand with a long stick. Her eyes were closed and she looked paler than usual. She hadn’t eaten much the last few days, way too engrossed with the spell.
As I approached her, she stretched out her hand to receive the map without opening her eyes. I gave it to her, careful not to step on any of the random lines that she had drawn on the sand.
Julia placed the map on the sand next to the many lines. Then she fell on her knees, broke the longer stick into half and then began to draw next to the map on the sand, her eyes closed all the while.
A few minutes passed as we watched her. Even Gulor and Zunzu who had gone to explore the top of the hill of the island returned. And then Julia opened her eyes.
“It’s done,” she said and she slumped onto the sandy beach, exhausted.
We went and saw what she had drawn. It was the other half of the map. It began exactly where the map on paper had been torn. This half not only showed the location of Julia’s island but also its distance from the place where the last wife lived, which was in an island at least a couple of hundred kilometres from where we were. Julia had written the name of the island kingdom on the sand: Sarotok
“Sarotok,” I mumbled. Had Glosis already reached that place? There was a good chance. But we could not give up the quest based on chance alone.
So it happened that we told the soul of the island to head off at full speed towards Sarotok. As I watched the coast of Cragor become smaller and smaller as we moved away from it, I prayed that we would not be denied the second part of the code this time and would be able to find the goat king.
Chapter 39
It took us three days to reach the island kingdom of Sarotok.
It was a unique place for sure. The island was surrounded on all sides by a thin circular strip of land that was separated from the island by a circular lake.
I could see many boats on the sandy circular strip of land. Boats that were being carried by cats across the strip of land to the lake.
Cats.
Hadn’t Julia said that the last wife, Loria, happened to be a dogman female? So Sarotok had to be a dogman kingdom and it was odd that there were so many cats.
“Glosis,” Julia said, “those cats, I think I saw them with Glosis!”
That explained things. So Glosis had reached the island mere minutes before us? This got the adrenaline pumping in me. Maybe we still had a chance to get to the wife before her.
Many of the boats had already reached the main island that was inside the lake. All the cats were in a hurry. And I saw a few boats sink into the lake, carrying the cats to its depths.
Our island came to a halt mere inches from the strip of land around Sarotok. The water of the lake was very dark. Something didn’t feel right about it. Quite a few boats of the cats had sunk and I hadn’t really seen the reason behind that. The boats that had survived the lake had by now reached the main island of Sarotok. There was a great castle in the middle of the island and to this all the cats hurried. The castle however seemed to be in decline. It had been attacked by vegetation. And the few houses that I saw scattered about the island had been abandoned.
Julia, Gnaria, Gulor, Zunzu and I waded over the water to the strip of land that surrounded Sarotok. Only seconds after we had reached it when Gnaria let out a gasp and said with much fright:
“I think I saw a hand inside the waters of the lake!”
“A hand?” Gulor said. He squatted near the edge of the lake and peered into the water. All of a sudden, a rotten blackened hand shot out of the water and tried to grab Gulor, who sprang away from the edge with a yelp in the nick of time. I saw that the hand belonged to a dogman. A dead dogman, with a good chunk of his skull exposed beneath his skin and eyes that had undead life in them.
“The gods help me,” Gulor said, “What the hell is that?”
The undead dogman retreated into the depths of the water. I could see many shapes moving beneath the surface of the water and I at once knew that the entire lake was teeming with undead dogmen. They were the ones who had pulled the boats of the cats into the depths of the lake.
“There is no way we can swim to Sarotok or even use the air bubble spell,” Julia said.
A thought clicked in my mind and I turned to Gnaria.
“You can help?” I asked her. She however didn’t look very sure of herself.
“I don’t know,” she said, “the other end of the lake is a considerable distance away. Plus, I will have to take the entire weight of the four of you. I am afraid, what if I couldn’t carry all of you to the other end of the lake and you fall into the water?”
I looked at the other end of the lake. The cats were rushing into the castle. I felt very impatient at that moment. Such a long time I had invested into the quest and I would not lose the second part of the code that can lead to the goat king to Glosis who was likely to do something to the dogman wife of the goat king once she told the code to Glosis.
I decided to screw the consequences.
“Take us anyway,” I said. “And no, you don’t need to carry the four of us. Julia can shape shift into her wind form and Zunzu can fly on his own as well. You only need to carry me and Gulor.”
“The other side of the lake is still a long way away though,” Gnaria said. “Don’t get me wrong, Timmy, I want the second part of the code as much as you. But I do not want to accidently drop you and Gulor into these dangerous waters.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll make it through,” I insisted, my eyes still on the castle. I wanted to get there fast. If only I had the flying spell I would have taken everyone to the other edge of the lake on my own.
Gnaria was reluctant, but she finally nodded. Gulor and I embraced her, while Julia turned into her wind form and Zunzu flapped his little wings and took to the air.
Gnaria activated her spell and began to hover.
“Okay,” she said and she sounded very nervous, “here we go.”
She began to move forward over the lake. Underneath the surface of the waters I could see the faces of the undead dogmen, their ghastly eyes observing us. It was a chilling feeling as we went further over the lake. I felt like something was sinking inside of me.
“Wonder what killed all the dogmen,” Gulor said, who was as frightened as me, “wonder what black powers made the dogmen come back from death.”
The other edge of the lake began to come closer to us.
Just then a hand shot out of the water and tried to grab our feet. But Gnaria made a quick movement just in time and the hand missed us.
“That was close,” I said, my heart rate leaping.
Only a few more metres and we would reach the other edge of the lake. Julia had already reached there and changed her shape to that of a human, and Zunzu reached the edge as well.
Barely had I allowed myself the thought that perhaps we would be able to reach the other edge without any event, when a hand shot out of the water. As Gnaria made a movement to escape the hand, another hand shot up from the water and this one grabbed my leg.
Panic flared inside me. There was something terrifying about the fingers of the hand of the undead dogman as they clutched tight my leg and tried to pull me into the water. My mind went blank as to what I should do.
“Leave me and go!” I said to Gnaria, even though I still had my arms wrapped tight around her.
“Don’t be an idiot!” Gnaria snapped as she did her best to pull me away from the dogman.
“Let me help,” Gulor said. He pointed his paw at the dogman that had grabbed my leg and fired an air arrow. The air arrow hit the arm of the dogman and he let go for a bare second. I shook my leg free of his grasps and Gna
ria hurried to the other edge of the lake.
As Gnaria dropped me and Gulor onto the other edge, I observed as the undead dogman that had grabbed my leg sink into the depths of the water. I could have fired an air arrow at him myself, but fear had entirely paralysed my mind. I hoped nothing of that sort would happen again.
“I think we should get going,” Julia said, her eyes fixed at the castle.
As our group made its way towards the castle, we saw that the vegetation that covered most of the island of Sarotok actually grew on the ruins of homes. Something bad must have befallen the inhabitants of Sarotok.
There were cats, followers of Glosis, all around the overgrown grounds of the castle.
“How are we going past those?” Gnaria asked.
I recalled the weird liquid spell that I had received the other day at the pyramid. Could it be put to use in this situation? Plus, the one person who needed to get inside the castle was Julia. Only she could get the other half of the code that told the goat king’s location from Loria, the dogman wife.
“Can you three distract the cats?” I asked Gnaria, Gulor and Zunzu. “Julia and I will go inside the castle in the mean time. All of us don’t need to be inside the castle.”
“We can do that,” Gulor said. He snapped his fingers and a sword of fire appeared around his belt. That was one cool spell that I totally hoped I would get the next time I did anything remarkable.
Gnaria leaned closed to me and kissed me on the cheek.
“Go,” she said to me, “we’ll deal with the cats.” She activated her knife spell and her paws acquired the shape of knives.
Julia and I went as close to the castle as possible without alerting the cats. Gnaria and the others ran off in a different direction where they could expose themselves to the cats well. And then Julia changed her shape to that of the wind and turned invisible. I hoped our plan would work and activated the Liquefy spell.
And then the strangest thing happened to me.
I began to melt. Within half a minute, I had turned entirely to liquid form. It was a weird sensation to be able to feel the grass beneath me, to feel the little insects and ants that were moving underneath me.
“Impressive,” a voice from nowhere said that I knew to be Julia’s.
“I just hope this works,” I replied, and I was well aware of the feeling that I was not speaking with my mouth, but by creating vibrations all about my liquid body. My eyes too had melted and dissolved into the rest of my liquid body, and I could see all around me and even underneath me. It was a 360 degree sight.
As we moved towards the castle, the cats outside it saw Gnaria and the other two in the distance and quite a few of them went in their direction. I prayed that no harm would come to Gnaria or to Gulor or Zunzu.
While Julia was completely invisible, if anyone saw the moving mass of liquid that was me, they would naturally get suspicious. So I kept myself under the cover of plants as much as I could and didn’t move over any area which could be easily seen by the cats.
There were steps leading up to the massive door of the massive castle, and this was the place where I had the most chances of being exposed to the cats so I moved up the steps as quickly as I could. The cats that had entered the castle with Glosis had closed the door from the inside. But this was no big deal to Julia and to me, because there was the smallest of gaps at the bottom of the door, and as long as there was a gap, even if it was a small one, a liquid and a gas could pass through it. Julia was able to pass through the gap faster than me. I being the liquid and being much denser than her in my form, took a few seconds more.
But when I was able to get to the inside of the castle, I was completely awestruck.
Chapter 40
There were hundreds and hundreds of dogman females inside the castle. They all looked identical and were striking to look at and wore expensive clothes. They all laughed and sang and danced about even though there was no music. The identical females were even upstairs, where I could see Glosis going from one room to the other with her cats as though she was searching for something or for someone.
“Loria,” Julia said to me.
“Where?”
“All of them,” Julia said and I understood that she meant all the identical dogman females.
It was at that moment that one of the dogman females came near me. She was not looking down and was about to step on me. I moved away from beneath her foot in time, but in the process I came under the foot of another of the dogman females that I had not taken to note.
Ironically I didn’t feel a thing when the foot was placed over my liquid body. It was as though the foot didn’t exist at all.
“Are they real?” I asked Julia. If the dogman female had been ‘real’ I should have felt her foot, right? Or was she a ghost?
“I think Loria used some kind of a defensive spell, which is interesting because Loria was the one wife of the goat king who was least adept at spells,” Julia said to me. “She probably saw Glosis and the other cats coming and she threw the spell over this castle so that Glosis couldn’t find the real Loria in the midst of the fake Lorias.”
“But we do need to find the true Loria, right?” I said to Julia.
“Keep an eye out,” Julia told me, “I doubt the real Loria would be as carefree looking as the fake ones. Even if she is trying to act like a fake one, something or the other about her would give her up.”
So, the next few minutes I just observed the Lorias. I could see why the goat king had made her one of his wives. Loria sure had to be the most beautiful dogman female that I had ever seen. Despite being a cat I felt myself attracted to the Lorias. Their beauty was radiant and even though light streamed in through the windows of the castle, it was the beauty of the Lorias and not the light coming from the outside that seemed to illuminate the inside of the castle.
Some of the cats came downstairs to search for the true Loria. To avoid being seen, I moved to the very edge of a wall, and then spread myself out in a thin line against the side of the wall. It was then that I noticed something. As one of Glosis’s henchmen (or henchcats, whatever you call them) swung his arm through one of the Lorias to see if she was the true one, another of the Lorias that had been dancing about, made an abrupt movement and went away from the cat, though she still kept on dancing.
This behaviour was caught by not just me but by one of the other henchcats of Glosis as well. He quickly ran to the particular Loria. As he neared her, the smile on the Loria’s face turned into an expression of fear. And then the henchcat caught her by the arm and let out a cry of victory.
“I have found her!” he yelled. As the true Loria tried to break free from the cat’s grasp, the other Lorias that had been dancing and singing till them faded and disappeared. The other cats that had gone upstairs, as well as Glosis, came rushing down.
“Do not hurt her!” Glosis cried, because the henchcats had grabbed Loria by both her arms.
The henchcats let go of Loria as Glosis reached.
“I mean you no harm,” Glosis said to Loria with fake guilt, “and I am terribly sorry if any of my cats caused you any discomfort.”
“Why have you come here?” Loria said.
“Do not be so scared,” Glosis said to Loria, “I know you and you know me. We have been wives to the same man and we have lived together and have been happy together.”
“That was a long time ago,” Loria said indifferently, “a lot has changed. Tell me why you have come here. I doubt you came here just because you remembered me.”
Glosis didn’t reply immediately. She acted being sad that Loria should say thus to her. Then she finally sighed and spoke,
“I came here because I still love the goat king,” she said, “all these years there has been a vacancy in my heart. I have tried to find love again, but I have failed. You do not know of all the pain that I have gone through. O, Loria, I want to find the goat king and ask him why he truly did what he did to us so long ago. I want to ask him if he truly was himsel
f the day that he insulted us.”
“Then go and ask him,” Loria said, “why ask me?” But Loria’s voice had softened just a bit and she no longer looked as frightened of Glosis as she had mere minutes ago. She was beginning to believe Glosis’s words.
“I cannot find him without knowing the second half of the code, the one you possess, which can help me know of his location,” Glosis said, careful to put some helplessness in her tone.
“So the second half of the code is all you want from me?” Loria said.
“Yes,” Glosis said, “I have tried to find the other wives as well, but I have failed. I must attribute it to luck that I have been able to find you.”
“Here is the code,” Loria said, and then she said something more, but all I heard was a shrill ringing sound. Julia who was near me gasped and I knew that the ringing sound itself had contained all the information about the second part of the code and could be understood only by the wives of the goat king.
Even Loria gasped. When she had given the second part of the code to Glosis, she had probably immediately come to know the first part herself and had got to know the location of the goat king.
“That is so far away,” Glosis said. Her eyes had become slightly unfocused as she appeared to be wondering how many other obstacles she might have to go through to reach to the goat king.
“It isn’t,” Loria said. “If you want to go to the goat king then I can help you.”
“How?” Glosis said. Her eyes went wild and impatient. “Tell me! Tell me!”
Loria seemed to be slightly taken aback by the sudden change in Glosis’s behaviour. But she continued speaking.
“A while ago a great sickness came to Sarotok,” Loria said, “It was caused by a black wind, the like of which I had never seen before. The sea can bring strange dangers and it was one of them. With the black wind all the citizens of Sarotok began to fall ill, and began to die.
“I was the only one spared for the entire event had occurred in the period of a day and I had stayed in the castle the entire day and the black wind couldn’t get inside the castle for I had closed all the windows. I was broken. All my people had died and I didn’t know how I should perform the last rites of so many people. And then to my surprise my people began to rise.
The Goat King's Wives Online Page 18