by J Battle
Chapter 28 Gorge
They were in the mage’s place, for where else would they be?
Gorge had created a chair more suitable to Crawlord Elstar’s stature, and decorated with gold and diamonds to suit his tastes.
‘Well, young man, this is very nice, I must say.’ Elstar was holding a hand-mirror and admiring the smoothness of his skin and the glossiness of his rich black hair, hanging free to his shoulders.
Gorge watched the crawlord, but he tried to avoid the eyes. There was something about their deep blue wonderfulness that clouded his mind and left him unable to make a decision.
‘We should gather together a small group of pretty girls and boys, I think. I had to let my humans go, well, to be more honest, they left when my attention was elsewhere.’
‘Girls and boys?’
‘Well, adults of course. I have no taste for younger. You are a young man, and you will be filled with passions of the flesh. You can have any woman or man you care for, and if they are less than inclined, then the pleasure is all the sweeter for the bending of them to your will. It adds a certain frisson, you will find.’
‘I...no.’
‘What is it, lad? Speak up now and do not worry, for we are almost equals, and with my aid and advice, you will one day be unsurpassed. How does that sound?’
‘Forgive me, sir, for I...I have some business to be about.’ Gorge rushed from the room, all of a sudden unable to bear the sound of the crawlord’s voice.
‘Be sure that they are pretty!’ called Elstar, with a smile as he studied his beautiful face in the mirror. ‘There is nothing less attractive than an ugly human.’ He allowed himself a little shiver at the very idea.
Gorge ran across the door lowered over the moat that now rushed with roaring blue and white water, and he raced into the old woods. He ran as fast as he could until his chest heaved and his throat burned, and still he ran.
At last he came to an old climbing tree; fat and round and with branches low to the ground.
When he was settled high up in the tree, he leant against its cool trunk and closed his eyes. Gradually his breathing slowed and his heart calmed its rush.
He sighed as he opened his eyes.
There was a small red-breasted bird on a branch just above, cleaning its feathers with a fastidious concentration, leaving the rest of the world to do as it would.
‘If only I could be that bird, with nothing to worry about, that would be fine, I reckon.’
He said the words softly, but the bird looked up and stared him in the eyes, as if affronted at having its toilet disturbed.
After a moment, with its point well made, it went back to its feathers.
Gorge stayed in the tree all day, and as he sat there, his mind seemed to clear somewhat, and he thought of Sam and Tom, and their treehouse further up the valley.
He wished that they were there now, altogether, with no Magic or strangers in the land, and certainly no Elvenfolk.
Could he use his Magic to achieve that? Or was it no more than a self-defeating wish? Of course, the Magic was the barrier, rich and enticing though it was, with its power in his hands, he could never be the same again.
He thought back to the disgust on Lady Alice’s face at the sight of the crops and flowers desperate to respond to him; using up their short spans of life in an extravagant display, and falling back to rotting nothingness, all too soon.
‘It weren’t right,’ he said, ever so softly, ‘it weren’t right at all. I thought...what did I think? That the Magic would make everything easy? That I could fix this and fix that, with a word and a gesture? When I don’t know what I’m doing? I’m not a mage, and it needs a mage to control it.’
He began to climb down from the tree, without being conscious of the reason for moving.
An image had appeared to him, as he descended.
There was the Lady’s face, full of concern. There was Tom, with one hand raised as if to support his words. There was Sam, looking all worried as he stepped closer to him.
And he’d rejected the arguments of the Lady and Tom, and ignored the support of Sam.
He’d raised his hands and exploded from their presence with a display of Magic, and reappeared in the forest.
But what was the last thing he’d seen before he went? It was still unclear, and his mind had been muddied for days by the crawlord.
But now? What could he see? The Lady was there, looking down, her face filled with distress. There was Tom, also looking down, his face aghast and his hands reaching out.
Where was Sam?
He leapt the final few feet to the ground and he sobbed as he landed, for now he remembered Sam’s poor still body, struck down by his uncontrolled, ignorant use of Magic.
‘Sam!’ he gasped, as he began to run.
Chapter 29 Trytor
There were two men and a woman, all full of youth and laughter as they walked, unaware of the figure hidden in the trees, watching them as they strolled.
‘I think he likes you, Maybell, I think he does, don’t you Nedd?’ said the taller of the men, with a gesture to the other man.
‘Shush now, Fredd, you know nothing, you don’t. Ignore him, for you know he’s a fool.’
Maybell bent to pluck a flower from the ground.
‘I don’t know, mayhap I like what he’s saying, fool though he is.’ She laughed then, and took Nedd’s hand.
He glared at Fredd for a moment, just to show that he should have kept his mouth shut, then he punched him on the shoulder to show he was forgiven.
He walked along with Maybell, in her bright yellow summer’s dress, and Fredd dropped back a little to give them time for some secret words.
‘About time too, I reckon,’ he said, as he watched them. ‘He’d have been all summer waiting to ask her, he would, without a bit of help.’
There was a noise, a rustling, in the trees to his left, where the road ran close to the forest, but he took little notice. There were few enough wild beasts in the land these days, and those that there were would not willingly approach a man.
The couple laughed, and she screamed with delight, and then they were off across the field, chasing each other like children.
Fredd stopped then and he shook his head slowly. ‘If only she had a sister. Well, another sister, for the one she has, she frightens me, she does, with those flashing eyes and a tongue that could flay the skin from your body. But, fair enough for all that.’
He looked back the way they’d come, and her face came to mind. ‘Yes, there’s a way to handle a woman with a sharp tongue, I reckon. You just don’t listen, that’s all. Simple enough.’
All of a sudden, he began to sprint across the road and into the field, chasing the new lovers, to tell them that he was going to go back and take up the challenge that was Lee-Anny, no matter if they laughed at his romantic effort.
In the shadows of the trees, a dark figure came to halt just a few feet from the road, his red eyes flaring in anger at the lost quarry.
‘I’ll not follow you,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll give you back your life, I will, and hope you make the most of it.’
He pulled back a couple of branches with his great seven-fingered hand, and he pushed his pale triangular head into the light.
He watched the girl as she laughed and teased the boy, and he thought back to the girls he’d known; road comfort he’d called them, and he’d always had his fill.
But, not now. Not now humanity had slipped from his frame. He stepped forward, exposed to the sun, for all to see, but none saw.
He was taller now, though a long way from his full height, and his skin was reddened as if he’d seen too much sun. His seven-fingered hands hung below his knees, and his clawed feet clenched in the grass, and his narrow red eyes watched the happy humans.
He turned away from them, for he was his father’s son, now truly become the last Trytor.
BobbyJ dropped his head a little and returned to the shadows, the place where he really belonge
d. He moved swiftly, uncaring of being heard, for if anyone thought to interfere with his progress, they would surely suffer the consequences.
There were some rocks piled in the centre of the forest and there was a good place for one such as him to hide beneath them.
He’d intended to travel to Fairisle to beat Cavour to the next Wellstone and bring it back for his father, but the urge to do that had somehow slipped from him as his body continued to change. What use was a Wellstone to him? He knew nothing of Magic, and he cared less than he knew. What use was the goodwill of his father if he returned with the Stone? The creature who had made him this way.
No, he wouldn’t be returning with a present for his father, unless it was the gift of death.
Inside his hideaway, he pulled the sword he had had made from between two rocks. It was long and sharp; too long for a mere human. But, for BobbyJ it was just right.
Such a sword would be hard to find in this land of little humans, but he’d found a blacksmith in a village beyond the hills, and he’d spoken words to him, and scared him and threatened him, until he said, ‘Yes, sir, right, sir, I’ll make you the biggest feckin sword in the world, I will, if you’ll take it away with you and never show your ugly face again.’
BobbyJ had laughed at his words and not taken offence, for he would have said the same if their positions had been reversed, and that’s for sure.
With the sword in his hand, he lifted his head and he looked to the northwest.
‘You’ve fathered a monster, dear father, and you shall reap your reward.’
Chapter 30 Elvenfolk
The Elvenfolk were forced to walk in single-file as the tangleweed left little room on the road as it loomed above and pressed against the land’s eldest folk.
They muttered and moaned as they walked, for they were surely too special to be carrying their own bags, and couldn’t some carriages have been arranged for them? It was only what they were due.
They passed through a town full of empty streets and open doors, with rubbish blown into the foul-smelling gutters.
‘Where is everybody?’ asked Blodnes with a scowl, to no-one in particular.
‘Broarlord Shenti says they’ve all rushed away up into the mountains, for fear of us, I expect.’
Blodnes gave him a glance, and then she lifted her head away and twitched her nose as if she’d detected an offensive smell. He wasn’t even a sub-lord, he was a lowly elf, and she could hardly be seen speaking to him.
‘What would that fool know of anything?’ she asked, of herself because she was obviously not conversing with a creature barely above a human in the Talking Stone of Life.
‘Well, the captain told him, I believe,’ said the elf, ignoring her sniffing and her caustic glances.
‘Can you take these bags for a moment? I need to rush ahead and speak to Shenti about something of importance.’
The elf opened his mouth to explain that his hands were already full enough with his own bags and that... Then he found that she was gone and he was holding her bags as well as his own, and they were really quite heavy.
Blodnes worked her way forward, intent on speaking to Shenti, because it seemed to her that these streets had been empty for days, and how would the humans have known that the Elvenfolk were coming? If they were not running from them, what were they running from?
The Elvenfolk were stretched out along the road between the town and the palace when it began.
At first, there was a fluttering rustling sound, as if the breeze was blowing through the great wall of the tangleweed to their right. The massive plant loomed above them, 30 feet high in places, and it was dark, smelly and menacing.
Blodnes looked up, and she would surely have had something to say about the lack of effort put into maintaining neat hedges by the lazy local humans, but the green and black wall fell onto her, along with all the other Elvenfolk, and such considerations fled from her mind.
She fought with ferocity and determination, hampered more than a little as she kept one hand firmly planted on her head to prevent her much cherished wig from being dislodged.
But her struggle, and the struggle of all of the others couldn’t be anything but in vain.
It wasn’t the weight of the tangleweed that proved too much for the Elvenfolk, for they were mightily strong. It wasn’t the sharp thorns that tore at their wrinkled flesh, for throughout their many years of diminishment, they had learned to know pain.
It was the strong, unbreakable vines, guided by a cold and vicious mind that choked the life from the last members of the oldest race, until the last beautiful blue eyes dimmed and closed, and they were no more.
Chapter 31 Giants
‘I don’t reckon this is the right way,’ said Aarvarn, and he stamped one massive foot onto the road.
‘Will you look at that?’ he said, as he bent a little to examine the cracks in the road, spreading away from his foot.
‘No, listen now, you old fool. I’ve told you this already, and I’m getting tired of the same old words, I am.’
‘Well, use some new ones, then. The old ones couldn’t get inside me head.’
Raarvan sighed, and he straightened his jacket a little, because it was a little tight across his great belly. The benefit of the Lady’s food, he thought.
‘Well, here we go again, then. There ain’t nothing but swamps and the like to the east, and there’ll be no food to be had at all, and we won’t like that, will we?’
Aarvarn hardly took more than a couple of seconds to come up with the answer.
‘No, I don’t reckon we will.’
‘And going north, what will we get there?’
‘Food? Or ale? Ale would do, if there ain’t no food.’
‘No, I told you already. If we go north, we’ll get hills, and we don’t like going up hills, do we?’
‘I likes going down hills.’
‘So, we can’t be going north,’ said Raarvan with a bump to his old friend’s shoulder.
‘What about south? If north is uphill, then I reckon south could be downhill.’
Raarvan stopped in his tracks.
‘Now, Aarvarn, I’ve heard you say some stupid things, I have, but that’s the stupidest thing you’ve said this week.’
‘What d’you mean? What did I say? South is the opposite way to north, I know it is. I saw it somewhere.’
‘Look south, now. What do you see?’ He pointed south to save a little time.
Aarvarn followed his finger with his eyes.
‘Oh,’ he said, after a moment’s consideration.
‘Exactly. That way is the sea.’
‘But it’s still downhill, I reckon.’
‘So, what does that leave us with?’
‘Ah…now, let me think. Which way did you say we couldn’t go? I know you said already, but there were too many to hold in my head.’
‘With all the sawdust there, I’m not surprised. East, north and south. So, what does that leave?’
‘That just leaves…there’s only one, ain’t there? Don’t tell me now, ‘cause I’ll get it if I give it a hard think, I will.’
Then he smiled.
‘It’s the west, ain’t it?’
Then he frowned.
‘We don’t want to go west, do we? Not with the king being there, and you’ve told him lies, you have, and he won’t be best pleased, I reckon. And he shouts a lot, and I don’t want him shouting at me.’
‘Now, listen here. You’re right, of course.’
Aarvarn’s face lit up at the idea that he was right.
‘But I’ve been giving it a good hard think, I have.’
‘You can do that. I seen you before. Your face gets all screwed up and it goes sort of red, it does.’
‘Well, let me tell you my plan, and don’t be interrupting or we’ll be taking all day long with it.’
‘I won’t interrupt again, unless I’ve got something to say. How does that sound?’
‘About as good as I’ll be ge
tting from you.’
The discussion of Raarvan’s plan was put on hold for several moments whilst they negotiated their exit through the west gate.
For some time they stood before the gate, unable to work out who should go first, and Raarvan refused to bump heads with his friend again, not after last time.
‘We’ll use the way my ma always said,’ suggested Raarvan. ‘The first to count all of his fingers goes through first. And, Aarvarn, if you don’t get 10, you’ve only got to start again. On your marks, get yourself all set, and…go!’
Raarvan reached 10 whilst Aarvarn was still trying to decide if a thumb counts as a finger.
Safely through to the other side of the gate, they set off at a pace few other two-legged creatures could hope to match.
‘So, you remember what we were talking about?’
‘Oh, ay, I do.’ Aarvarn stopped walking. ’You want to go west, and I don’t want to go west.’
Raarvan turned to him. ‘When you hear what I say, you’ll want to go west.’
‘Will I?’ It seemed a strange idea to Aarvarn, but then, the world was full of strange ideas.
‘Yes, you will. So come along while I tell you.’
With a long grumbling sigh, Aarvarn set of once more.
‘You see, I’m not worried about meeting the king, because that’s my plan.’
‘Why?’
‘He’ll be coming this way and he’ll be annoyed that he was sent the wrong way, and he’ll be hungry, he will.’
‘You’re not saying anything that makes me want to go west.’
‘Well, listen some more, then, and you will. You see, I’m going to speak to the king and send him right back where he came from, see if I don’t.’
‘Why? How will that help us?’
‘When we’ve sent him on his way, we can come back to Hesselton, and that little lady, she’ll be so pleased to see us when she hears that we’ve saved her again.’
‘And she’ll give us food and ale?’
‘See – I told you you’d like it.’