Possible Hero

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Possible Hero Page 23

by Sean Heslin


  The tired eyes inspected the wavering horizon. There was no trace of any movement, any sign of approach. The only hint of animal life was the possibility of a vulture skirting around the storm clouds.

  To listen was to hear the wind whistling, of gravel turning, of the heavy sky grumbling its displeasure. Echoes from further down the canyon suggested some distant struggle between a predator and its prey.

  To smell was to receive the curious scent of nothing at all. The air had a lack of moisture and the eerie wind kept all airborne particles close to the ground.

  A parched tongue briefly flicked over dry lips. The rains would soon come, bringing temporary release, but the traveller doubted it would be enough to wash away the evil from the land.

  Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours. Every moment stretched into eternity. Whole civilisations could have risen and fallen while the warrior sat and watched, and waited.

  As night drew in, there was some brief activity from the dark fortress, gates closing till morning.

  The night brought cold.

  The blackened sky continued to groan, making stranger echoes in the chasm below.

  A lack of light obscured the true origin of these noises, making the darkness seem filled with thousands of bloodthirsty creatures. Which in a way it was.

  The heavens opened at last and gave of their best.

  The river far below erupted, making a dark vein throb along the scar. Mud and silt washed down the sides of the Chasm, and fell from the surrounding plains making any resting place a treacherous gamble. In the dark, all footing was impossible to judge.

  The traveller though, had chosen their spot well. It lay under a short overhang, partway down the wall of the canyon, providing the illusion of a solid wall as mud washed down before the eyes in a tarnished waterfall.

  Eyes drooped and shoulders shifted into a sleeping position. Nobody would be foolish enough to arrive in these conditions. So, to rest, in preparation of that which was to come.

  The day would bring blood.

  Chapter 43

  “Life is not just for the living. The dead get bored by all your damn posturing!”

  - Gorinficalimonhurenjiformasongicalopafin, ‘reanimation specialist’, 1547 C.M.

  “…done now?”

  The urglon/Eithril’s eyes flickered open and saw fire.

  A self-sustaining fireball to be exact. He guessed Yrinmet had created that in place of a campfire. Why? Lack of fuel in the area. Who else was there? The others were sat in various positions of lamentation upon the sticky mud, half-heartedly discussing plans of action. He felt that Goe was still affixed to his back, blissfully asleep and unaware of current events. Why would he still be there? Milspeth's insistence probably, that they not move Goe, for he may have awoken before they were ready to leave. That was grief? Strange.

  Rancha tried to move and untold pain coursed through his body. His neck was broken and he was bleeding out his life's blood. This would not do.

  He heard Perci gasp. Must have been looking at him. Huh, the knight was finally paying attention. He shimmered back into his true urglon shape. Goe hovered in mid-air for a split second and comedically tumbled to the ground.

  He picked himself up, blinked and smacked his dry lips. “Are we here then?” he asked glancing at the stricken party.

  “Rancha!” choked Perci “You’re alive!”

  Pib ran forward and became a limpet on Rancha's front left leg, weeping all over again.

  Terand hopped back and forth in shock while Yrinmet stonily regarded the urglon. Milspeth was in tears as well, aiding Goe but keeping her eyes fixed upon this miracle.

  “What? What did I miss?” pleaded Goe. “Somebody tell me! Aw, please…”

  Milspeth half-heartedly cuffed him round the back of the head.

  “Er, Pib you’re crushing my leg,” winced Rancha.

  “I don’t care, I’m so happy…” she dissolved into tears again.

  “It is amazing something so small can contain so much water,” said Perci. This also earned him a smack from Milspeth.

  Rancha shook off Pib, and after a glance of consideration around their current environment, did his rippling bit to transform into a modestly-sized gargoyle. This change earned an impressed nod from Yrinmet and a slight relapse from Perci.

  “But, but how are you still alive?” wailed Pib. “You...you were dead!”

  Rancha looked down at the diminutive powerhouse. “The Eithril that I was had its neck broken, but my true form was unharmed, so I changed back into myself and was healed. It's not my first time. Annoyingly.”

  Perci’s face scrunched up. “So you cant be an Eithril any more, because it is dead?”

  “Ah, that’s the beauty of it. It was just a form to me so I can change back and I’ll be completely unharmed and ready to go.”

  “Convenient,” commented Terand.

  “No, just good design,” said Rancha, his words carrying a great deal of bitterness.

  “I did some research on this and I have a couple of questions,” said Yrinmet.

  “Hardly the place or the time for it, but go ahead.”

  “One, does this mean you are immortal? Every time you get injured you just change and be better?”

  “Sadly no. I still age whatever shape I’m in, and if I get ripped completely to shreds then I’m stuffed.” rancha looked at his newly clawed hands with a touch of melancholy.

  Yrinmet nodded sagely. “My second question. Where do you come from and where do you go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you change into something bigger than you, you require extra mass. When you go smaller the bits you don’t need have to go somewhere, otherwise you would be a very heavy fly or whatever.”

  Rancha was baffled. “I can honestly say I’ve never thought about that. Not ever occurred to me.” He paused and thought for a moment. “I suppose it’s got some crap to do with dimensions.”

  “Oh, those. Dammit.”

  “As fascinating as this is,” said Terand “I believe we have a world to save.”

  Once more, they gave the old “Oh yeah…”, picking up gear, making ready and starting to walk towards the dark spot in the distance. They all seemed slightly more cheerful at the miracle, and their marching was not as sullen as it had been.

  “Quite remarkable,” mumbled Goe as they walked. “Like that time with that mankfree, do you remember the mankfree…?”

  “Yes Goe, I remember,” nodded Milspeth politely, obviously not remembering.

  “It was…hm…funny we had to tie it to the tree, boy was it mad!” he chuckled.

  “It was, yes.”

  “Not as mad as that King of, where was it?”

  “Llamaburg,”

  “Ah, yes! He was the one that thought he was a parrot or some such thing! Hm…that was a good one…”

  “That’s true.”

  “Good parrots are so hard to find these days…hm…try a pet shop, always wanted a pet shop,”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Goldfish and gerbils all day long! But never see any…hm…cymals,”

  “No, you don’t”

  “Except in that place…mm… you know the one with all the canal boats and sand and wonderful buildings…”

  “Grandag.”

  “Ah yes! Has all those little holiday islands near it…mm…have I been there?”

  “Two weeks ago, and four months before that.”

  “Hm…yes I had one of those enormous ice creams, that was nice, but not as nice as fudge from that little village…”

  “I was in Grandag two weeks ago,” chipped in Rancha.

  Goe’s fuzzy eyesight focused on him. “Really my boy? Hm, good for you. Did you have an ice cream too?”

  Rancha admitted that he had.

  “That’s nice. What a multi…mm…cultural society we live in when everybody can enjoy ice cream. Small world, my boy…remember that.”

  “Not that small,” said Milspeth
.

  “Hm…that’s true. Well, this one isn’t but the other two, they’re pretty small,”

  Yrinmet got interested. “You’ve been to other worlds?”

  “Have we? Ah, yes we have…hm…but then most people have these days, what with all three being one and all that…”

  “Careful Goe,” warned Milspeth.

  Goe suddenly looked ashamed as if he had said too much. Then he went straight back into amiable babbling. “Being careful! Hah, we were never careful when we met that…hm…witch doctor, strange guy…”

  And so it went for the next three or four miles, with occasional contributions from the amused crew just to see how long Goe could keep it up. Forever apparently, for between them the aged companions, Goe and Milspeth had done and seen practically everything there was to do and see. Even the well-travelled Terand was learning new things amongst all the tangents the venerated oldster continued to spout.

  Then almost a little too soon, they arrived at the infamous, deadly and treacherous Chasm Of The Damned causing Perci to lose his lunch when he was inches from falling in. Only the stony claws of Rancha stopped him from plunging to his doom.

  “What were you even looking at?”

  “The sky! Such power! An excellent portent for the quest! No?”

  “No.”

  They stood on the lip of the tear in the land in awe.

  The previous night's mudslide had caused great rivulets of earth to flow down the sides of the Chasm and they had dried into grotesque veins. The bulging lines coated the walls making the landscape seem alive with pulsing blood.

  They felt sick.

  Terand was the current voice of reason. “As fun as it is staring at wonderful natural architecture, we do still need t' get across. Ideas people?”

  “The giant snake again?” said Yrinmet.

  “Nah, wouldn’t be big enough,” vetoed Rancha “How about a spot of levitation?”

  “With all of you? No, I’d get tired and somebody would fall in. Sorry.”

  “Use the bridge, I would.”

  “What bridge? Oh, wait, is that one way over there?” Rancha paused. “Which one of you said that?”

  The group looked at each other and there were numerous shrugs.

  “Is that another Guardian or something?” addressed Rancha to the air in general.

  “Don’t be silly. I could do with some help down here though and I’d be happy to show you the bridge.”

  They all cautiously leaned over the edge and saw another horrific sight to add to the collection. A head and a pair of arms were sticking out the living rock, and all the surrounding dry rivulets made it seem they were being spoken to by the spirit of the Chasm itself.

  One arm gave a cheerful, if restricted, salute.

  “All I can just about see right now is a row of heads. Either you are a many-headed beast, or you are all very curious and I’d prefer to see some action, so if somebody could oblige?”

  “What are you?” enquired a stricken Perci.

  “Does he always ask silly questions like that?” the head asked. “Less talk, more aid, please. And hurry: I’ve got an itch.”

  “Yes, but what are you?” repeated Perci.

  The exasperated head sighed. “Look, it’s quite simple. I fell asleep on this ledge here…”

  “What ledge?”

  “Shuttup. Anyway, the rains came, mud flowed and when I woke up, it had dried like this, effectively trapping me. Any more silly questions or is somebody going to get some rope out?”

  “Oh, so the rest of you is in there is it?”

  “Yes, that is another pretty silly question. Well done.”

  The others had by this point already made a harness for Rancha and were lowering his rock-eating gargoyle shape down the wall. Going to work with all the appropriate claws and horns, he cut away the hollow section of canyon containing the contained person, and tugged on the rope.

  The unknown other rose, looking like they were locked into red stone stocks. Once up in relative safety, they removed the excess lumps and Milspeth produced a damp cloth to clean the worst of the muck off the face.

  The crew stood back and admired their handiwork. And stopped. And gaped.

  “Oh fnug you’re Jocene the Immortal Slayer aren’t you?” Terand was dumbfounded.

  “Yes, I suppose I am. Want an autograph do you?”

  “If you are offering, then yeah, yes please.” He proffered his dual bladed weapon.

  Jocene sighed, pulled out a knife and etched a sigil on the hilt. She turned to Perci. “I suppose he of the dumb questions wants one too?”

  Perci did not answer. He was In Love with the tall blonde, strong, mud-streaked vision of a famous immortal warrior woman that was impossibly, somehow, talking to him.

  “No? Suit yourself. Anyone got some water? It has been a few days,” said Jocene. Pib passed a flask, which she gulped gratefully. “Anyway. You all know me, so who are all of you?”

  Appropriate introductions were made, with various degrees of being impressed on Jocene’s part.

  “Ah, so I’m in the right place then.”

  “Huh?” went Rancha.

  “Congratulations, I’m your seventh member.”

  “Eighth,” said an indignant Pib.

  “She wasn't being racist, Goe and Milspeth count as one person,” said Rancha, who then shook himself. “But I’m not going into that now, what the flying fnug are you on about?”

  Jocene sighed. “You are on a quest to…”

  “…save the world,” they chorused.

  “Yeah, that,” said Jocene, looking disturbed. “I’ve been sent to help you, whether you like it or not. I was supposed to have helped you days ago. Indeed, if you had come straight here from Franchick like you were supposed to, you would have noticed a certain lack of resistance. Mainly because I have just spent the last week and a half clearing out every possible fnugging enemy you could have encountered or anything else that could have inconvenienced you on the way here, including bandits and a thing that was probably the last one of its kind because I'd never seen one before I killed it, you ungrateful little..!” She paused and regained her composure. “Ha, yes. Questing. Fun life. But, I’m here now, so what’s the plan, boss?”

  “Sent by whom?” said Yrinmet, staring intently at her.

  She bit her lip. “I…am not at liberty to say.”

  “Anyone bad?” demanded Terand.

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “You were sent by Eric weren’t you?” shouted Yrinmet.

  “Of course not!” A pause. “Who’s Eric?”

  “Knock it off, you two, this is Jocene. The Jocene,” snapped Rancha. He turned back to her. “If you really want to join us, fair enough, but there probably won’t be much point now. There hasn’t been any so far.”

  “I guessed as much. So where are you headed? The Dread Fortress over there?”

  “Actually no,” said Rancha. “Way too dangerous. I was thinking about persuading our fine leader, Perci here, that we should pack this in and go on holiday.”

  Jocene winced. “I have just spent the last week and a half killing or seeing off every dangerous thing bigger than a fatworm between here and the Chasm and you aren't even going? Oh for fnug's sake...!” she stamped away from the group in exasperation.

  “Whoa, whoa! I'm just kidding!”

  “Don't piss off the immortal,” said Terand out the corner of his mouth.

  “Yeah, I got that. Yes, we are going to the Fortress. I suppose.”

  “Fine. The bridge is about a mile that way,” said Jocene. “Use it if you want to, but it may take a while.”

  “Do you know how much time we actually have?”

  Jocene snorted. “You are the heroes, naturally you will arrive just in time. We will now.”

  Rancha sighed. “True enough, I have noticed that sort of thing myself.” He shrugged. “Okay, promise not to upset us too much and you can come along.” He half-turned to the others. “Wago
ns ho, people!”

  And so Jocene the Immortal Slayer became one of the World Take-It-Or-Leave-It Programme, a name Rancha had revised from the last effort.

  Chapter 44

  “Don't. Just don't.”

  - The Carpenter King, during an advertisement drive, to his assistant who had just suggested he might want to wear some trousers, 4112 C.M.

  Eric the Merciful was aware of a few things. He was almost entirely certain that the group of heroes sent to thwart him was now fully banded together, if the usual timetable had been adhered too, even with the necessary margin of area. Ugh, he remembered that time that a jaynirg death-flight squadron had come to try and assassinate him, with only two members. Such amateurishness was unforgivable.

  He was also very much aware of his current doings, but they were not sensible to be discussed in public, at least on the outside of certain specialist encounter groups. Suffice to say the doing involved certain excitable and downright terrified young ladies, who were variously into that sort of thing. Perks of the position, good way to let off steam, but he found his mind was still wandering.

  Eric kept thinking about events from earlier in the day and things he was yet to do.

  He had tortured three adventurers and now for future reference had the location of one of the better-hidden treasure troves of the world.

  He had invented a brand new card game with the help of some bored imps.

  He moved the bulk of his army by means of mass teleportation to a temporary base on the outside edge of a highly significant desert land, located further down the continent of Trangess.

  He finished putting together the first of what he liked to call his Twister Cannons.

  He slept for about seven hours, but then he didn’t need very much.

  He ate something involving snapfish meat, served with orange coloured and flavoured sauce.

  He had trained in the gym for half an hour, but got bored and sparred with one of his faster healing subjects, for more realistic practise.

  He issued lots of orders, including having the privies cleaned again, and properly this time.

 

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