Tall Tales: The Nymphs' Symphony (Scott T Beith's Tall Tales Saga Book 1)

by Scott Beith

  “Was it now… Princess?” Axel said towards Anara, in an ambiguous tone. “So it’s Anara,” he then continued, ending her fun as her expression softened with a sentimental remorse.

  “I did want to tell you,” she truthfully confessed, realising the seriousness of her deceit.

  “What your mother did to me was unforgivable,” Axel angrily declared.

  “Axel, children shouldn’t be punished for their parents’ actions,” I stated defensively.

  Anara and I waited in silence to see what Axel would do to us, now that he knew the truth.

  “I trust you’ll make sure your brother will do better then,” he finally said, dissolving the building tension.

  “He wouldn’t be in danger if he wasn’t,” I said, vouching for my prince and hoping Axel’s words meant he’d keep Anara’s secret.

  “It was still good seeing you again,” Anara said as she hugged Axel goodbye.

  “Be safe, ok?” he finally said, unwilling to move any further along from the entrance post, merely looking at Anara and me before taking his leave.

  “I promise I won’t tell anyone who you two are,” Jax reassured us, staying a bit longer as he continued to walk with us, looking to me with the same fondness Axel had looked at Anara with. “I’d imagine this floor is a little underclass for you girls,” he then said, looking around, his words spoken with a certain softness and weakness.

  “Yes, but its good enough,” I answered respectfully back to him.

  “Have a good sleep ok, and I’ll come get you in the morning before the first blimps are set to take off,” he added before hugging us both goodnight as well. “Good night, girls. See you early morning.”

  Scared we might have made enemies, Anara carefully snuck us back to our room, ready to decompress from a long eventful night.

  “Hey, Anara,” I said to her as she tucked herself into the twin bed below Vallah, the overgrown baby nestled in her web above Anara, “all things considered, I did have a fun night, and I’m sorry if I ever doubted you about getting us here,” I said, dropping down exhaustively onto my bed.

  “And I probably should listen to you a little more,” she responded. “But be honest,” she said, turning on her side to face me, “did you have a bit of fun too tonight?”

  “It was… different. But yes, yes I did,” I then confessed for a second time before slipping under my sheets and blankets for good. “Night, Anna,” I said in mockery to her.

  “Night, my demon spawn,” she retaliated, closing her eyes as I placed my spinning head on my soft cushioning pillow in order to do the same.

  16

  The Summit

  There was a strong sunrise to wake me. It shone straight through partially ripped white curtains and right onto my eyes and pillow. I tried to turn to block it out, but it was still so bright and kept me from falling back asleep.

  So just lying there awake feeling hot and stuffy while waiting for true day to set in, I began wondering where in this tier level’s roofing the light was even originating from. Perhaps it was stored electricity carried and harnessed by hundreds of the fuzzy blimp beasts that buzzed and shook their hornet booties while roaming their elaborate hive. Or maybe it was structural in nature, based on thousands of tiny glass prisms and mirrors lining each floor level and bending real sunlight from outside to channel inwards and reach us.

  In a place as technological as The Hotel Capricorn, it did seem like anything was possible, and after sleeping off all the whimsical effects of last night, I was back to my ordinary self, unable to shake the anxious feeling that the sunlight might have been made using some of Midas’s solar technology, just like the Sunspire at home. The thoughts of his input here had me rethinking how safe we were, and kept me from falling back asleep. So I laid there, pinned under the tight stuffy blankets.

  It had only been about thirty minutes since the sun had started shining over this cheap desert inn, but my face was sweaty from the heat, and my mind was dreaming of a place that had thicker curtains and a stronger, faster ceiling to spin over our heads, seeing as the current one was doing nothing more than restricting Vallah from leaving the corner above Anara.

  Eventually, I felt just too hot and bothered to lay still anymore. Anara was unfazed by sun, her bed was furthest from the front door and window, and therefore not subjected to as much heat. But even still, she laid there in a state of pure bliss, bathing in the morning rays, spread like a starfish across the bed and absorbing that sunlight as if she were a blooming plant.

  Watching her look so comfortable made me envious of her, but more so, it made me question just how different I was from all the others in The Borderlands, after all I was the only one there clearly not adapted for a tropical climate. My black hair, pale skin and necessity for shade meant, unlike Anara, I was very happy to be escaping the warmth soon and be heading right into the heart of the mountainside and its frosty darker climate.

  For once, sleeplessness was beneficial to our situation, making sure that we didn’t oversleep our early bird departure time, so, getting up and walking over to the one backroom we had, I passed over my princess sleeping underneath our pet protector, scratching both their heads in an attempt of gentle wake. I soon gave up and went to see what kind of old fashioned shower and bathroom we hadn’t so much as bothered to survey on first inspection of this room.

  Although, to no great surprise, it looked exactly how I expected it to look. Walking across cool-ish but grotty tiles, I stepped into a small moldy ceramic tub that was both a shower and a bath, and turned the tap, the water that spurted from the rusty steel spout feeling like magic.

  Once I felt refreshed, I got out and sat in a chair on the opposite end of the beds, beside the window, waiting for Anara to wake on her own accord, or at least for Jax to knock on the door and fright her awake. And although the morning started off slow and boring, I was becoming impatient, because I could hardly contain the excitement I felt for the new day. I was astonished over how far we’d already ventured – a distance I couldn’t fathom to the proper scale of my ever-growing map.

  I picked up one of the folded hotel brochures Anara had taken yesterday and began reading it. We were actually staying in the hottest level of this great pyramid hotel. Known to them as ‘The Sandpit’, the whole sub-basement tier level was indeed merged with the very bedrock of the ‘honeycomb chamber’ in which we resided, which did also mean that above the fake sunny blue sky, there was an entire ocean bay directly outside the pyramid platform’s living thick clay walls.

  As also, according to that map, it seemed like we had only travelled a few inches from the entrance staircase, in relation to what else was on the level. There were at least five more hotels on The Valley of Kings track alone, as well as a few rivers, an actual ‘geothermal electro-static power plant’ and many other touristy sights and destinations. In fact the area on the map we occupied was so small when in comparison to all the grey areas on the map which were still left to be properly explored.

  After another twenty minutes of sitting around, I was getting tired of simply waiting. I decided to try waking Anara again with a few less gentle nudges. Amazed at just how well she managed to nestle into the blanket, choosing to push herself deeper under the blankets, trying to get away from me and gain a few more precious moments of sleep.

  My efforts only succeeding when a gentle knock on the door was finally able to startle her awake. “Morning, girls. It’s just me… Jax,” a voice called out from outside, followed by a second firmer knock. “Have I gotten the right room? Are you both in there?”

  “We’ll be right out,” I called back, hurrying Anara out of bed before opening the door to let Jax in.

  “WHAT IS THAT?!” he shrieked, jumping backwards against the door in fright, his eyes widening as he stared directly above Anara. My own thoughts jumping to the belief he was referring to Anara’s curly blonde bed hair, rather than the pet we forgot to introduce him too earlier “Girls, don’t move!”

  “Sh
e’s friendly jax, and she’s coming with us,” I announced, bringing the spider down to scuttle over and greet him, while our lagging teen princess slumped tiredly around to collect her belongings and follow us out of the door.

  This time around, it was much easier to sneak Vallah out, as no one else was up yet, so there was no need for Anara to hide our spider. We were able to walk out of the hotel without sighting any staff or nymphs, and I left our hotel key in a jar at the reception desk. The four of us made our way back to the market square outside the giant pyramid hotel.

  The night before, it had been crowded with masses of merchants and tourists everywhere, but during the first crack of dawn it was a complete ghost town, with not a soul around. We used the boardwalk stairs to reach the pier level and used it to take us out of the deserted market square and across the bay. It appeared we were the only three nymphs not enjoying a weekend sleep-in.

  Moving straight onto the scenic bridge that led to the runway one huge hexagonal chamber over, this time we were sightseeing in reverse as we made excellent time towards the uphill exit. Stretching our calves as we climbed the stairs and trotted across the clammy side harbour of the lagoons foreshore and back into the large drainage tunnels that took us out of the city.

  Through only silence and gander, we said our final goodbyes to this bay before continuing to follow the long turning crevices of its drainage exit tunnel, walking through it until it eventually reopened and expanded back out into the huge exterior expanse that was the bumbling blimp beasts’ pollen delivery point.

  “Wait up there if you can. I’ll just be a minute,” Jax informed us, pointing up to some steel scaffold steps that led to a small iron observation deck along the corner of his un-manned runway before walking off into a rusty corrugated hangar storage shed.

  His directions lead us towards his cramped work station, which sat in a tiny private hotbox isolated up and away from the main empty space below. Despite the stuffiness, I could see why he liked working here, the view was spectacular. It was an uphill booth that showed off everything there was in the hive: the runway below, the chambers above and across, and the sight of all the blimps as they came and left through the vast expanse of the hive.

  “I brought you these,” Jax said, entering a few moments later with an imported type of hot tea from our homeland.

  “Thank you,” Anara said.

  “Thank you,” I also said, cupping my hands around the thick mug and sipping at it slowly.

  “We may have to wait a little. I can’t tell you exactly when the right one will come along, but when it does we will have to be quick,” he warned us.

  “That’s ok. We will wait as long as it takes,” Anara responded, knowing he had our best intentions at heart. The tenderness in his eyes evidence enough that we could trust him.

  Jax then went to one of the cupboards and pulled out two glass jars of preserved liquid honey wrapped in a decorative red fabric, sealed shut with a pretty bow. “It’s not much, but in case you run into any kind of trouble out in the barrens, here’s a little something you might be able to find use of,” he said, giving us the jars. “I know you’d get better stuff in your castle, but, animals go nuts over it, it could be very useful at luring creatures away,” he added sheepishly.

  “That’s really sweet of you,” Anara complimented appreciatively, putting a hand to her heart to symbolise what it meant to us. “If you ever find yourself in The Borderlands, you should come visit us,” she said to him.

  He gave a short smile and a shy nod before walking off to secure us a blimp. Not replying to Anara but seeming cheerful enough with the prospect that it was offered to him.

  I was starting to realise just how much Jax was doing for Anara and me, despite receiving nothing in return, all for a favour to a work college who couldn’t even be bothered waking up early enough in the morning to come along and help him out. And for that I felt sorry that we had nothing to offer him in return for everything he was doing for us.

  I watched him leave his office and make his way back out onto the runway, dragging out a basket from the hangar bay, approaching the dancing and buzzing blimp animals cautiously, with their massive stingers swinging about like swords as he dodged them trying to interpret which way they were travelling.

  About an hour passed before Jax ran from the runway and back up the stairs in an excited rush. “That one right down there,” he enthusiastically indicated, puffing as he came into the room, “it’s ordering the others to go mountainside.”

  “Where exactly will it take us?” I asked.

  “Right over the Olymipic Mountain Ranges, but low to their peak,” he answered. “Come. Come. We need to attach the parachute box quickly,” he said in a rush, Anara and me quickly shuffling Vallah off the hotbox rooftop, where she waited, and bolting down the scaffolding steps towards the runway, where Jax indicated which basket was for Vallah to sleigh.

  Using silk like a chain, Vallah towed it to the dancing bug. Jax clamped the basket to the beast using the same static suction technique that magnetically locked the thick brown hamper basket to the furry flying goliaths undercarriage like the pollen balls did.

  Anara and I squeezed inside with Vallah, leaving Jax to double check the fibrous suction pads at the top corners of the basket. The blimp took off almost immediately, setting off in a heartbeat, leaving us with no time to wave farewell to Jax. Having met him only yesterday, I was surprised how dearly I was already missing him – even Axel too, for all his shortcoming, he at least had a sense of honesty and integrity about him. In essence, they were both honourable knightly people.

  New friends who’d been worthy of a longer and better goodbye. Although looking at Anara, she seemed less enticed by such sentiment, as she no doubt planned to return here again, a small smile also arising out of me as I stared towards her and started to believe I’d be back too.

  I shifted my mind to focus on our crazy journey ahead. After having already left the tree gap and were re-entering The Badlands desert moving towards the distant mountain ranges. It dawned on me with just how far away from home we were – and much further we still had to go – having to re-enter the dry rocky barrens of the desert Badlands, only to then start to shiver through the blizzard-like winds that soon led into monsoon-like rains, each hour bringing a new season with it.

  About an hour into the trip water had turned into hail. Hail then becoming the precursor to snow as we sailed into the icy mountainside ranges.

  By midday, the cold wind was most unbearable; we had entered the snowy white mountainside in a combined huddle. Vallah providing much warmth and comfort, wrapping us in her eight legs, protecting us from all but the fumes of a rising smell of ash and smoke as we passed over the low bearing cloud-line of an active volcano. The volcano of the notorious ‘Frost-Fire Peak’ volcano and its crystal mining caverns deep under the glacial snowcap.

  Still unbelievably intact, we had made it to the arctic ridge along the western cliff edge. The warm fuzzy exterior of this buzzing blimp managing to partially blanket us against the harsh bite of frosty ice, flicking against our exposed skin as it stung us with sharp coldness every now and again.

  “There it is,” I shouted to Anara, pointing to the Crystal Caverns’ main entrance corridoor, which was distinctly singed into the core of the mountains like a knife stabbed into a tree.

  The saddest of sights to witness our blimp continue to rise right over it and towards the mountain’s tallest peak, as it was too dangerous for us to drop out into the winds and land there upon such a treacherous angle.

  So we continued to gain altitude, waiting to reach the flat peak of the mountain’s snowcap, where this bug and basket would be at its lowest position from the falling snow and intense wind.

  “You ready?” Anara said with a certain level of thrill and excitement, the adrenaline junkie within her waking up as we were finally positioned near a festive snow village we could see right below us, giving me no time at all to prepare before she yanked on
a straw release cord that had been tucked away in the basket’s corner.

  To both our alarm, even more than the thought of the fall, the cord did nothing. Anara and I looked at each other in great concern. The ice had frozen the straw lever shut. Anara tugged on the lever again and again, and with each failed pull, both of us became less and less convinced we’d ever break free.

  Suddenly, the basket detached, jolting Anara and me as we weightlessly dropped unrestrained through the freezing air. All three of us freefalling in terror until the stuffed roofing shot up from the basket in parachute, expanding above us like the top half of an inflating balloon.

  Its huge leafy canvas-like tarp broke against the wind harshly as it twisted and straightened itself to set sail, finally allowing us to drop back down to the basket’s floor, realising then and there by the churns of our stomachs, why the soothing hot tea was so important for us to have before we left.

  “Grab the ropes,” I instructed Anara, moving towards the ropes in the corners of the basket, which were attached to the parachute, quickly attempting to readjust our heading as we made a fierce descent towards the village below.

  I hoped that brief drop was going to be all the thrills we would have to endure for the rest of our journey, feeling like near death experiences should be limited to only once a day at most.

  Smiling and enthused, Anara was fully pledged to her choice of travel style. Never doubtful or concerned that in the real world, things sometimes break and malfunction from time to time.

  The lightweight parachute box touched us down on deep soft snow, landing us further away from the snowy white village than I would have liked, but close enough for us to be safely in the village’s protected borders, which was marked by pine trees that all glowed either red or green with incandescent lights. The main cabin lodge was made of timber and surrounded by igloos and snowmen. Resilient guards were buried inside these snowmen, stationed there like turrets, holding long shards of ice like swords and daggers.