Heroes of Perpetua

by Brian Clopper

“Um . . . well . . . the wizard’s really running the show.” Lou wasn’t sure adding a moody orc to their adventure was all that wise. She glanced at Kanzu and Nelson to read their expressions.

  The dragon looked excited. Nelson did, too. Probably happy to have another word nerd along.

  “Then it’s a done deal. Wizards love me. There’s no way he will refuse my services.” He stood up, looking like he had a million errands to run to get ready for his departure. “Wait, um, there is the matter of my wages.”

  “What?” Lou asked.

  “I will be recording your travails. I need to be compensated for such. What do you offer?”

  “Bitcoin,” Nelson said.

  “Ooh, that sounds exotic. I have no idea of the exchange rate between that and margfobs, but we can hammer out those details later. I trust that true heroes such as yourself will pay me handsomely. I’m going to make you look absolutely amazing.” He dashed off.

  Lou looked at Nelson. “Bitcoin, really?”

  He shrugged. “It got him off our backs.”

  For now. The dragon sent his thoughts to both.

  Nelson smiled at Kanzu.

  Lou did too. “Don’t go expecting you’re going to get paid now.”

  The adventure and companionship are reward enough. This is proving to be a splendid expedition. I’m eager to see which way the winds take us.

  Lou and Nelson excused themselves and went to fetch the wizard.

  Lou thought, If we’re lucky, we might be able to head out without the boisterous orc.

  If only.

  Chapter 14

  Nelson Faces a Keep That Doesn’t Keep To Itself

  Lou rode on Kanzu’s back, while Nelson, the orc, and Wizard Itzel continued walking through the woods. An hour into their journey with their newest travel companion, and already Nelson was no longer a fan. True, the orc could carry on a stimulating conversation and had a way with words that exceeded Nelson’s vocabulary, but his frequent outbursts and aggressive tendencies were unnerving. Nelson had accidentally ‘stoked his ire’ by questioning the orc’s knowledge of the stinging habits of a species of moth like the one that had landed on Nelson’s arm halfway back. Luckily, Lou had swatted it off before either of their claims could be proven true. Nelson still maintained that an insect’s sting couldn’t mark a prey so that an approaching swarm could descend and feast, and the orc strongly felt that was the case. Nelson was convinced the orc had made it up purely to see Nelson panic—which he had, a little.

  They emerged from the woods, facing a dried-up creek that seemed to hug the forest’s edge, and beyond that a red desert.

  Wizard Itzel squinted at the dunes as he took a drink. Finally, he turned around and motioned at the creek bed. “Cutting through the desert is faster, but I’m not a fan of sand zombies.”

  “Sand zombies?” Lou said, dismounting from the young dragon and patting his head in thanks.

  “Horrible undead that lurk just below the surface and then pop out and drag you under. Their numbers are few, but we’re just not equipped to handle them.”

  Horvuk executed a series of fighting stances with his spear. “Speak for yourself. I am raging to part such zombies from their noggins. I have never fought a sand zombie, but my uncle bested a whole colony.” He pointed downstream. “It might have been farther down. I know there was a lake he tossed them into. The heads that is.”

  The wizard eased down the slight embankment on this side of the creek and looked up the dry gulch. Small yellow lizards dashed through the rock bed, stopping to raise their heads and scan about, and then moving on after they swatted their twin tails against the ground several times. Nelson wondered what was going on with the creatures. Were they communicating with each other? He pointed at a nearby lizard. “What are those?”

  The wizard sent the reptile a dismissive look. “Scrits, a slight nuisance but no real threat.”

  Lou said, “So back into the woods?”

  Nelson tuned into the dragon. Kanzu stalked along the creek bed, eyeing the scrits and licking his lips. Was he about to witness him pounce and feed?

  The wizard wove a spell, summoning a yellow whirlwind of magic that spun about at his feet, only coming up to the golem’s waist. He nodded at the tiny cyclone, and it split in two. The pair of vortexes grew until they were taller than the wizard. He waved his hands as if to banish them, and they raced down the slight embankment, and then one traveled upstream while the other tore off in the opposite direction.

  Nelson was surprised to see that each left behind a two-foot-wide path of purple mushrooms that sprouted up instantaneously in the magic’s wake.

  The wizard stepped on the mushrooms and began walking upstream. He waved for them to follow. Each step changed the mushrooms from purple to yellow. In fact, it was like a wave of yellow that raced ahead and behind him.

  Lou and Kanzu fell in line, stopping to watch the color change they sparked. When they stood still, the color on every mushroom, other than the few under their feet, faded back to purple.

  Surprisingly, the fungus wasn’t the least bit smushed underfoot, even with the dragon’s weight.

  The wizard said, “Keep moving, please.” He hopped ahead, again sending a shifting wave of yellow forward and backward that quickly faded.

  Lou said, “It’s like walking on soft cobblestones.” Once in a while she teetered, as the swath of mushrooms wasn’t always a uniform height.

  Horvuk joined them and seemed tickled with the carpet of mushrooms.

  Nelson stepped on the path and found it wasn’t as off-putting as he’d thought it would be. They added a slight bounce to his step that he didn’t care for, but if he thought of it as wading across a trampoline, he could tolerate it.

  “Why couldn’t we walk through the creek bed without this?” Nelson asked.

  The wizard said, “This is a dedicated path spell. It extends about a mile in either direction. If anything with ill intent spotted us on the path, they can’t just pounce on us. The magic forces them to get on the path if they have such foul motives. The mushrooms will change to yellow, and that yellow will race along the path until it gets to us.”

  “An early warning system?” Lou said.

  The wizard smiled. “Yes, so wise, Lou.”

  Nelson pointed to a rock ahead that jutted from the side of the creek and hung over half of it. “So if some predator got our scent, they couldn’t climb up on that rock and ambush us?”

  “No, they would have to get on the path. The magic makes it a compulsion, and nothing can resist it. They will think it a sound way to hunt their prey.”

  “And that works for animals and species of higher intelligence?” Nelson had his doubts. Why would mushrooms react that way? What benefit was there to it?

  Wizard Itzel stopped and put his hands on his hips. “The compulsion is the magic part, and the color changing is a biological aspect of these fungi. They’re all linked together, so when one detects bacteria, they all flare up. You’re just going to keep spouting questions until it makes sense to your scientific mind, aren’t you?”

  Nelson nodded. “I just don’t understand . . .”

  “Listen, these are actual fungi that change color when they come in contact with bacteria on the feet, paws, or hooves of anything that steps on them.” The wizard smiled and lifted up his foot to point underneath his big toe and fused toes. “And yes, there are lots of microbes on my feet and yours, even with you wearing something over your toesies.”

  Okay, that was making some sense. Shoes were some of the filthiest surfaces, even worse than a toilet seat.

  “But, how does the color change benefit the mushrooms?”

  The wizard sighed. “The color change happens because of the digestive juices secreted. These mushrooms are actually called scrubrooms because you can rub your feet on them and clear off most of the bacteria.”

  Lou said, “They won’t melt our shoes, will they?” She started high stepping, peering at the next section her foot wou
ld have to be placed as if trying to select a spot with less risk.

  “Only if you stay put for a long time in one spot, and, even then, it would take a while to wear away your foot coverings.”

  Horvuk said, “This discussion of mushroom eating habits is just peachy. I can respect a symbiotic relationship as much as the next guy, but where are we going here? Is our destination at the source of this dried creek bed?”

  Nelson appreciated the orc’s scientific call-out. The scrubrooms were a win-win situation for the organisms involved, as long as one didn’t linger. Why was so much of Perpetua’s ecosystem so gung-ho with digestive enzymes?

  “The spell was keyed to deliver us to Hugo, so we just need to stick to it.” The wizard grinned.

  Lou said, “And hope nothing other than us turns it yellow.”

  “Yes, we should all stop together here and there to see if anything else is on the path and triggering the color change.” The golem froze in mid-step.

  Everyone also stopped, and the path reverted to purple in under five seconds. Nelson scanned both directions. No color change.

  The wizard waved for them to resume moving.

  “And this is the long way?” Nelson looked out over the dunes to their left.

  “Afraid so, and the mushrooms need some moisture in the ground to appear, so another reason to avoid the desert.”

  “Since we will be traveling together for some time, what say we get to know each other? Orcs have a punch game that does just that.” Horvuk made a fist and slammed it into his palm.

  Lou glared at Horvuk. “And does it involve bashing one another when a person shares a life detail that someone also has in common?”

  Horvuk’s eyes widened. “Oh, so you’ve played before?”

  “No, just not hard to figure out.” She smiled.

  “I don’t want to play,” Nelson said, eyeing the small bone spurs protruding from each of the orc’s knuckles.

  Kanzu lazily swatted his tail Nelson’s way. The one with glasses bruises too easily, perhaps. I think we can just share without the pummeling.

  Horvuk said, “If we must.”

  ****

  Nelson paid the most attention to the details the dragon and orc shared, which revealed their species’ general behaviors and traits. He was less interested in learning about the many dreams the orc had on a nightly basis and more willing to be captivated by Kanzu’s hunting practices, and how the young dragon did so without taking to the air. In general, the dragon seemed to share more pertinent info.

  Their progress along the creek bed seemed to be always uphill. The scrits dashed across their path here and there, triggering several false alarms. A half hour in, nothing else had produced the yellow warning.

  They stopped and sat on the embankment, keeping their feet off the path to ensure the scrubrooms wouldn’t take their cleaning too far.

  Nelson drank half his water and watched the wizard magically replenish the canteen the dragons had awarded each of them.

  An overly curious scrit kept dashing over to Nelson’s feet and then seemingly turning up its nose before scrambling away.

  “Why does it do that?” Lou nodded at the retreating reptile as the wizard topped off her water.

  “Scrits are carrion feeders. Since Nelson is living tissue, it loses interest. It’s initially attracted to the scent of his dead skin cells, and then when it gets closer and determines he’s not dead enough to its liking, it moves on.”

  “There’s a fish that does that. People get it to eat the dead skin from their feet to make them smoother.” Nelson shivered, unnerved at the image of a fish or lizard making a meal of his feet, specifically his dead skin.

  “And can this fish species you speak of clean a full-grown mora raider to the bone in under an hour?” Horvuk dug out a piece of jerky from a belt pouch and chewed on it fiercely. He had a gleam in his eye that told Nelson the orc enjoyed imagining such a feat.

  “Um, no.” Nelson shooed another scrit away.

  Worry not. Scrit will not harm you . . . as long as you’re still breathing. Kanzu smiled.

  Nelson gazed at some yellow and purple flowers growing close to the creek bed. “Is everything so focused on eating in Perpetua?”

  Horvuk slashed at the flowers with his spear. “Have no fear, young Nelson. I will save you from the vicious plant.”

  Nelson took a step back from the trimmed flowers. “Wait, really?”

  The orc scooped up the severed tops of the plants and arranged the stems so the flowers formed a bouquet. He waved it menacingly in Nelson’s face and then, just as quickly, spun about and approached Lou. The orc dropped to one knee and presented the bouquet to her. “Nah, just regular flowers. Very pretty ones for a maiden most fair.”

  Lou frowned and didn’t accept the flowers.

  Nelson wondered why not. The flowers weren’t going to eat her. At least, he thought they wouldn’t; the orc was so hard to figure out.

  Horvuk tossed the flowers and looked upset. “You cast my affections aside? Do you know how I put myself out there?” The orc grabbed a knife from his boot and wagged it about.

  The wizard tossed a magical bolt between the two. It slammed into the ground at the orc’s feet, causing the brute to stagger backward. “You won’t be able to write much of an adventure if you do in someone from your merry band, orc. Get a handle on your berserker self.”

  Nelson caught the wizard’s serious tone.

  The orc stowed away his blade and immediately went into apology mode. “So sorry. I really must ask that you forgive me. I get overtaken with my emotions. I feel so very much, so very easily. But that’s a ‘me’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem. Please know I am ashamed, Lou.” He dropped his head and then spun about and resumed trekking up the path.

  Nelson noticed Lou gave the orc a strange look. He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t too good at reading facial expressions on people. With animals, it was slightly easier. The furrier, the better. He had been especially good at detecting when something had been off with Tally-Ho. He drew in a long breath, not happy to be reminded of the squirrel’s squished fate.

  Nelson jumped back on the path and caught up with the orc. The rest followed suit, with the wizard dashing ahead.

  ****

  After a two-hour walk, the low banks of the creek seemed to sprout, without any gradual transition, into impressive walls that were several stories tall, forming a canyon of red rock. The wizard hesitated to enter the new landscape.

  Kanzu’s thoughts intruded. The Red Canyon, a place one treads lightly through or simply avoids.

  Lou petted the dragon. “Why?”

  “It’s home to the Wayward Keep,” the wizard answered.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  The wizard waved a finger at the dragon. “Not another word about it. The more one talks about you know what, the more likely it is to show up.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nelson noticed the scrits didn’t enter the canyon. Several scampered near, but none dashed into it.

  “So we should go around it?” Lou eyed the desert to their left and the tree line of the forest that peeled away from the creek right as it terminated at the canyon. Numerous rock formations stuck out of the bare ground between the canyon and the woods.

  Wizard Itzel pointed to the mushroom path that stretched into the canyon. “We should be okay. It’s probably somewhere else right now. Otherwise, we’d have received a warning.” He splashed some water on his person, rehydrating his gray body and returning it to a rich brown. That seemed to embolden him enough to enter the canyon at a brisk walk. “Follow me and keep up.”

  ****

  They alternated between jogging and speed-walking. With the sheer walls looming on either side and having traveled through several bends—they could no longer see where they’d entered the canyon—their new setting was disturbing.

  It was little help that the orc didn’t attempt to soften his footsteps, and their resulting echoes boomed through
the deep channel.

  The wizard stopped everyone. “Maybe a little less impactful footfall, Horvuk?”

  The orc looked ready to assault the wizard but pulled out his journal instead and wrote a few lines. This seemed to calm him.

  Suddenly, a swath of yellow rushed toward them from deeper in the canyon.

  “Company.” The orc stashed away his journal and readied his spear, again looking a little too bloodthirsty.

  Nelson resisted the urge to run, mostly because Lou stood her ground. She held high her canteen. It took him a second to realize she was offering it up as a weapon. He imitated her pose, uncertain if threatening a solid drenching amounted to much of a defense. He glanced at the wizard. Unless, of course, we are about to be attacked by another golem.

  Two long, thick legs lumbered toward them, each as tall as a barn, with five clawed toes protruding from their hairy feet.

  Nelson sent his gaze upward. Perched atop the legs was a tower made of black stacked stone. There was a lone door at its base, with vertical narrow window slits sprinkled along its length. The sound of moaning issued from every opening.

  The orc went pale and fumbled with his spear. “The Wayward Keep!”

  Nelson stared at the wizard, expecting the mage to be readying a spell. Instead, the golem’s expression was one of abject fear.

  Lou shouted, “Georgie’s back in charge!”

  At the sound of his name, the golem shot her a look and then ran back the way they came.

  The Wayward Keep descended on them, the moans growing even louder.

  Chapter 15

  Hugo Overshares With the Elf

  Hugo’s jaw hurt. He rubbed at it as he struggled to his feet. He was still a ghost. It was weird that he could feel pain. He tried to tune out the ache in his face.

  Vua had punched him hardenough to knock him out. He’d never been hit before and was disappointed that it had taken just one punch.

  He looked around. He was still in the woods, a small clearing to be exact. A campfire blazed to his right, which made sense as it was still night time. No sign of the elf.

  “Vua?” He stood and tried to take a step forward, only he couldn’t. His foot hit an invisible barrier. When he looked down, he realized a ring of red dirt, or maybe ash, encircled him. He sent his hands and feet outward, probing all the way around, and found he couldn’t get a single part of him to go past the raised property line.