by Tim Paulson
Chapter 14
"Marching forward is easy. Defeating the enemy is simple. Holding the land is hard."
-Unnamed landsknecht, 1597
Henri writhed against his bonds. The tentacles of the skull headed creatures that held him felt like steel manacles. No matter how hard he pulled or twisted he couldn't move even the tiniest amount.
They held him at the edge of the large open room where the veil machine hummed as it generated the gaping spiraling membrane of bright yellow. With the goggles Henri could see energy pouring out of it like a flood.
The black clad wizard who called himself Vex had a chain of his skeletal helpers bringing in all manner of oddly shaped items which they carried near to the machine. There was a sphere with a spiral hole in it roughly the size of an anvil, a spear with a blade so black it looked like a piece of midnight and a cube covered with illegible arcane symbols arrayed in lines and spirals.
As each item entered the room it began to glow. Tendrils of the golden energy would slither out of the membrane at the center of the machine and connect, pumping the items full of the life blood that made them function, whatever that was. Henri knew it as veil.
The wizard himself seemed preoccupied with something he was manipulating beside the great machine. It was a pyramid shaped object, pure white, about the size of the quenching tank you would use for a good sized sword.
As much as Henri wanted to see what the wizard was doing, it was hard to concentrate with the sound of his son quietly sobbing in a chair only a stone's throw away. Little Adem, his poor child who'd been through so much had been stabbed to start this wizard's insane machine and forgotten. It filled Henri with white hot rage.
“Let me out of here!”
Vex did not respond.
“I want to go to my son, please!” Tears formed in his eyes.
Vex grumbled, rubbing one of his bandaged hands against his temple. “Daniel, bring the boy to his father.”
One of the skull creatures paused. The skull on this one had two tiny horns, similar to a young deer. It was carrying something shaped like a pistol only larger and with two hand grips.
The item was carefully placed on the ground out of the way before the creature glided over to where Adem sobbed. Henri watched as his son shook with fear at the approach of the terrifying being.
“Don't worry Adem!” he yelled. “He's coming to bring you to me.”
As the tentacled skull approached it slowed. Rather than reach out and man handle Adem it merely extended one of its limbs, almost tenderly, in Adem's direction. Its horned head bobbed ever so slightly, as if saying something. The chair's grasping tentacles released but Adem refused to move.
“No!” Adem said.
“I think it wants you to take its hand,” Henri explained.
The skull nodded slowly, holding the one black shining tentacle out, motionless.
There was a moment where nothing happened. Henri waited, not saying anything, knowing his boy was getting used to the idea.
Then, a little boy's hand reached out tentatively and grasped the black limb. The creature gently helped Adem get down from the chair and ushered him across the room to his father. Halfway, Adem broke into a run and embraced him tightly.
Vex waved a bandage wrapped hand and the creatures that held Henri released.
Henri hugged his boy, hard.
“Daddy?”
“Yes my little man?” Henri said.
“You're scratchy.”
“I know. I need a shave,” he said. It had been a couple of days since the battle at the village. Shaving had been the least of his concerns.
“Thank you,” he said to the creature. In response the deer skull nodded briefly before it turned back to its previous duty.
Had this thing once been human? Was it yet another captive puppet like Harald, condemned for some crime to serve for all eternity as some faceless monster? How terrible.
It was odd looking at Adem through the veil spectacles. Henri could see the golden glowing energy emanating from the amulet his son wore around his neck. He could also see the nineteen writhing veil demons as they curled and spun inside the boy's body like so many snakes. It made him shudder.
“Daddy, I'm hungry,” Adem said softly, head buried in his father's chest.
“Me too,” Henri said. His glance moved to the wizard who was still fiddling with the pyramidal device, hesitating to ask.
Vex let out a long sigh. “You know, we don't exactly keep much food around here. You might have noticed the city is dead.”
“Can you make some?” Henri ventured.
“Doll man used shor-sherry to make cake!” Adem said, peeking his head out from around this father's right bicep.
Vex rolled his eyes. The irises were a bright blood red but the rest was white as normal, the effect was grotesque. “I'm not that kind of wizard.” He returned his gaze to the device. “Can't you see I'm busy?”
“Please?” begged Adem, still virtually attached to his father's chest. Henri marveled at the boy's resilience. Only moments ago he'd been yolked to a chair and stabbed in the leg, yet now he was calmly beseeching a terrifyingly powerful being.
Another, longer sigh issued from the wizard. “So be it. Daniel, please acquire a homonculous frame. We have at least one in storage.”
Once again the creature with the horned deer skull peeled off from the others, who by this time had arrayed quite a pile of artifacts of various shapes and sizes, all of them radiating with the golden energy they'd absorbed. Daniel then glided on his stilt-like legs to the edge of the roughly circular room where it was ringed with rows of spiral organic looking columns. He disappeared into a dark recess only to return a few moments later, carrying something quite large.
It looked like a very thin man, almost skeletal, made of a uniformly dark gray material except for the face which was a smooth glassy black. The skull creature carried this over to the wizard before setting it face down with great care.
“Thank you Daniel,” Vex said as he fiddled with some knob or switch on his device.
Once again Daniel nodded and turned to resume his previous duties.
The wizard's head cocked, a curious sight given the large size of his hat. “Wait one moment Daniel,” he said as he fished something out of the folds of his robe with his bandage wrapped fingers. “Why don't you stick with the blacksmith and the boy. Help them get around, keep them safe. Can you do that?”
The skull nodded.
“Good,” Vex said and leaned forward to place a green stone into an open slot at the back of the human shaped gray form that lay face down on the floor next to him.
The form quivered, rolled over and sat up.
“Harald. Please get some food for our guests. I'm trying to get this infernal baltu qabu machine working,” Vex said.
Where once had been a flat black face were now features, human features, even eyes with bright whites and blue irises.
“Good to see you again smith, I suppose,” Harald said. When he spoke bright white teeth could be seen behind the black lips. The effect was striking. It even looked like the smooth black material had formed a thin goatee around Harald's mouth and chin. This was clearly an improvement over the doll.
Harald turned to the wizard beside him. “Mmmm let me guess, it's telling you it can't find anyone?”
Vex blinked. “Well yes. I've even tried using the blacksmith as a reference but it won't... it won't function.”
“You're doing what to me?” Henri said.
They ignored him.
“You might check the buffer. It should be cleared before you begin. Did you clear it?” Harald said.
“I didn't... ah... realize,” Vex said, rubbing one bandaged finger along the edge of his absurdly long nose.
Harald shook his head. “You should have had me do this for you. I'm a sorcerer you know, of the Tabannusi conjuring and structuralschool, quite accomplished.”
Vex held up a hand. “That's why you're conscious aga
in. I need you to make some food for them,” he said and pointed a long wrapped finger at Henri and Adem. “Just keep them quiet.”
“I am not some... some... chef! I am a sorcerer!” Harald said. “You Salmu wizards... you're all the same! You think the rest of us exist to serve your purpose, your mission, whatever that is, but you resist any attempt to tell you what ought to be done. You're a bunch of hypocrites!”
“We? We do that?” Vex said. “Your kind destroyed everything! You! I ought to stuff you back in my pocket for another thousand years!”
“Please don't! I'm hungry!” Adem said. This caused both of them to pause. Vex's red eyes and Harald's blue both turned to regard the little boy.
Harald pointed a finger at Vex. “We'll finish this discussion at a later time.”
Vex shrugged. “There is no discussion. I won't waste time debating things that happened thousands of years ago-”
“Of course you won't because you know you'll lose!” Harald said. “And please try not to damage that baltu qabu machine. I don't imagine there are many left.”
Vex waved him away.
Harald strode his new lithe gray body over to Henri and Adem, heels clicking against the stone floor.
“Before we do this gentlemen, allow me just a moment to attire myself properly,” he said and waved his fingers around. With the veil goggles Henri saw golden symbols being drawn in the air. There was a flash of light and a hiss and a set of white clothes fringed with red appeared in front of Harald who snatched them up and slipped them on. When he'd finished he brushed himself off and smiled.
“I almost feel like myself again,” he said.
“So... food?” Henri asked.
“Right, yes, of course,” Harald said. “What would you like? With this much power I can summon anything your heart desires.”
Henri's mind reeled at the prospect. The ability to choose anything he wanted after having so little choice for so long. It had been years since they'd fled the city. Along the way there had been villages and Inns, each with their own limited selection. Salted meats, stews, gamey sausages of deer and wood fowl, rarely some mutton, but little else. Yet now that he could pick whatever he wanted, his mind went blank.
Adem had no such issue. “Cake!” he said.
Harald cracked his bright white smile. “Of course you would remember the cake. However, why don't I whip up something more filling?” Blue eyes surveyed the area around them.
“No cake?” Adem looked heart broken.
“Oh there will be cake little boy. Smith, please back your boy up about three siluals.”
“I'm sorry what?” Henri said.
Harald grimaced with annoyance. “Does no one use the standard measures anymore? Just back up and keep going until I say stop.”
Henri took Adem's hand and they stepped back until Harald motioned for them to stop. It was around ten feet.
Harald looked over at the great white machine and smiled, raising his arms. “This gentlemen is why my kind of sorcery will always be superior,” he said, clearly baiting Vex whose red eyes glanced over, narrowing.
“Oh get over yourself,” Vex said.
Harald then began writing in the air. It was one of the most complex sets of symbols Henri had ever seen, like an architect's plans, only, layered somehow. Circles inscribed within circles filled the air with golden glowing lines. Around and inside of them Harald wrote characters of every shape and description.
Henri saw immediately why Vex had taken the veil spectacles before. When you had them you could actually see the power leaving the stone that housed Harald's consciousness and flowing down his neck to a center point near his heart where it then flowed down his arms in streams that poured out through his fingers. He wondered if someone wearing veil lenses would have seen through Vex's old woman disguise.
Finally with a flourish Harald stepped back. All the different symbols, lines and circles came together in a perfect interlocking pattern. A bright yellow light filled the room. There was a sizzling ripping noise as the light coalesced into a large glowing object.
It was a banquet table complete with chairs, goblets, plates and bowls, all made of bright light until with a loud hiss everything became real at once. The table was there, sitting on the floor in front of them as well as the chairs and the plates, all full of food and drink. It was an incredible feast, a banquet, just for them.
Henri could smell the roast pig and the great steaming fish and the braised leg of... something that filled the center of the table but there were many other dishes as well, things he'd never seen.
“Wow!” Adem said, clapping his hands. At the very end of the table were indeed two cakes, each of a different color and shape. The boy's eyes looked ready to pop from his skull.
“King Malamut's feast, how original,” Vex said.
“Originality takes time. Expedience was the order here was it not? Oh... I don't know why I'm justifying myself. Ignore the Salmu smith. If it's not made of bones they don't approve. Please enjoy,” Harald said, one hand rubbing his obsidian forehead while the other waved at the great table.
They wasted no time.
Henri was too hungry to bother being cautious and there was no stopping Adem once he'd seen the cakes. It was all Henri could do to get the boy to take a few bites of meat and fish and something else, a marginally nourishing looking concoction of an orange mashed root vegetable.
Henri gorged himself as did Adem. They sat together at the table while Harald sat at the very end but did not eat. He faced away from the other wizard who was still trying to get his device to work while a cavalcade of the stilt-like skull creatures continued to walk past with various items to fill.
Henri removed the veil spectacles while he ate. He wanted to keep them on but found that eating food while it had a yellowish green tint was not conducive to a health appetite.
He stuffed them into one of his pockets, a pocket that was quite dirty, like much of the rest of him. It dawned on Henri that it had been some time since his clothes had been cleaned or they'd been able to wash up. His under tunic was quite sweaty.
“Harald?”
“Yes?”
“Is it possible for us to wash up somewhere? Our clothes are not at their best after all the traveling and running.”
“No bath!” Adem said from his chair, while his dirty mitts shoveled cake into his face as fast as he possibly could.
“Though I cannot smell you as I have only a facsimile for a nose, I'll take your word for it. I have the perfect spell for that, just hold still-”
Henri held up a broad callused hand. “Please, just some warm water and a basin.” He looked at his grimy boy. “Some soap too.”
“Soap... yuck.” Adem made a face.
Daniel appeared out of nowhere at Henri's side, startling him severely. The deer skull with the two tiny horns nodded as it pointed with one of its limbs and moved off.
“What just happened?” Henri said, trying to get a hold of himself.
“He's getting what you asked, obviously,” Harald said as he put one foot up on the corner of the table. “Ah, it's good to be human sized again. It's amazing how life can lower your expectations isn't it?”
At this point Henri didn't know what to think. Were these... wizards or sorcerers, whatever they called themselves, were they good or evil? They wielded immense powers, that was clear, but they'd shown the capacity for generosity and kindness as well, something the church had always been quick to suggest was impossible.
Of course the church had also called them deceivers, quick to promise the world but untrustworthy, always scheming. Vex had mentioned long ago they might talk with someone about helping Adem. That remained to be seen.
“Ah ha!” came a satisfied exclamation from Vex on the other end of the room.
“Finally figured it out have you?” Harald said as he inspected the backside of one of his skeletal gray hands.
The top part of the device in front of Vex separated from the base and rose s
everal inches before splitting open into four parts like white flower petals. Above it circles of light appeared that spun and intertwined.
Vex took up a piece of the lower part of the device and held it up to his scarf below his long gray nose.
“Sybile! Can you hear me?” he said into the machine.
Harald burst out laughing. “You fool!”
Vex ignored him, continuing to call into the device. “Sybile, answer me if you can hear me!”
“What's so funny?” Henri asked the white cloaked sorcerer.
Harald took his foot down from the table and leaned forward, bridging his gray hands on the table before him with a twinkle in his eye.
“Long ago, in a world just like this one only far more sophisticated and civilized, beings of incredible power and grace like myself and that dolt over there discovered what it was that gave them the ability to do sorcery. It didn't come from inside them as had been thought for a very long time, it came from another place.”
“The veil,” Henri said.
“Is that what you call it? I suppose it's as good as any name. We called it abzu. It means the source. The place itself we named La'atsu, the home of the spirits.”
“The more we learned about this world the more we wanted to know what was there, to open a gate and explore the La'atsu.”
Henri nodded. He knew several professors at the Veil Institute who would give anything to listen in to this conversation. In the background Vex kept calling for someone named Sybile.
“Unfortunately when we finally did find a way there, we discovered that everything we sent made of flesh and blood... disappeared. Poof, gone. Never to return. No one knew what happened to it because nothing and no one who passed through the abzu ever came back.”
“What was sent through?” Henri said.
“They tried everything. Metal boxes, animals, even human volunteers,” Harald said.
“Is that who this Sybile was? One of the volunteers?” Henri said in between mouthfuls of a tasty meat he could not quite identify.
“Not quite,” Harald said.
“You're not telling him the whole story,” Vex said from the other side of the room. “Like how your people started drawing more and more power. How as everything in that supposedly civilized society became dependent on that power discovering where it was coming from became less important.”