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

by Scott Beith

  We were looking at each other with great uncertainty. I really felt sorry for her, guilty as if it were I who was holding her body away from the light. I was about to speak, but was distracted by something small coming out of hiding and climbing down the flat and fat pedestal planked wooden stakes. The glowing brightness of the light concealed it as it moved towards Pilly and me at the bottom of the wooden boardwalk.

  The figure was too close to the light for me to make out exactly what it was, preparing each spiky corner of growing wings in case it was hostile in nature.

  “No wait! It’s ok!” Pilly cried out as she ran over to the gentle dwarfish creature most defensively. A small tiny gnoll under a cute shroud coming down from the second story plank after spying on our little argument.

  Pilly pulled the gnoll up as she held it in her arms, wiping away mud and muck from its clothes, only to remove its hood and reveal a tiny little boy from under those shrouded covers. He could have been no more than one or two years old. He wore tiny cloth shoes that were covered in remnants of spider webs. His face being one of ultimate familiarity.

  The exact size and shape of a child I had seen once before – the very one that our spiders had entangled in spider webs back in the meadows, just before an adult-sized gnoll had lunged down and sliced the silk cord to free him. Levi being that tall gnoll who grabbed and freed that child just before their horde began to attack us!

  33

  Avernus

  When I first started my argument I was determined to believe that my world wasn’t entirely at fault for all that had befallen their shadow world, but after one look into that innocent toddler’s timid baby brown eyes, I had immediately flipped my perspective.

  I had begun my argument on the back foot, reflecting on how I was raised to think, that if thirty soldiers died every day fighting for the crown, that it might have been a bad day at war but it was at least according to the plan, that it was their duty. However, seeing a single child being brought into the centre of the slaughter, that was something I couldn’t rationalise or tolerate. The gnolls weren’t the villains I had been led to believe they were, we were, and regardless of my own admission and acceptance of fault, more had to be done about my new revelation.

  Pilly seemed just as scared as the child, with her looking to me as if that child in her arms meant circumstances had completely changed and she was on the back foot, willing to surrender peacefully regardless of the costs – a feeling I was surprised to find myself feeling as well.

  Standing there silently, the two of us stared towards the child without word, only ever glancing at each other on rare occasion to judge each other’s reaction to that young boy’s shock presence among us.

  None of my concerns about getting home seemed to matter anymore, for the presence of that child made this world suddenly real to me. It was more of a reality than a dream, as all I began to care about was finding a way to save that child, to find a way to end the war as quickly as possible before any more like him suffered.

  “We can’t always bring the food back,” Pilly said to me submissively, suddenly scared and unsure of my reaction upon seeing her infant’s face. “When the crops get too low, we have no choice but to bring him with us,” she explained.

  I heard every word she said, but I was unable to look away from that child, nor could he from me. The boy looked at me as if he knew me, but he appeared scared, clinging to Pilly, hugging her like one would climb a tree in order to get off the low ground.

  “Forgive his stare,” Pilly said. “This is all a bit weird for him,” she added as I carefully approached, trying not to scare him further.

  I knelt down slightly to his level. “I’m Kya. What’s your name?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond, he just continued staring into my eyes, his bright amber coloured eyes glowing against the reflected light radiating above, shining like maple tree sap. His wet black hair and pale skin matched mine too.

  The boy was restricting himself from trying to show a fondness towards me, a retreating shyness or shock that made him look down as I spoke to him, thinking it was just one more indicator of the true monster I must have been to Pilly and him in this world.

  “His name is Avernus,” Pilly said on his behalf, kneeling down as she answered for him, ruffling his hair playfully. “But we just all call him Our Little Duke.”

  “Who is he?!” said a stern male voice from behind us.

  I turned around, relief and joy flooding me when I saw Arlo wearily standing behind us, pale and weak as a ghost, being helped towards me by both Anara and Milena, who must have trailed just behind us. A thin gate key wrapped around a chain on Milena’s neck explaining how they got in so easily, considering her missing leg and the state of my prince.

  The seriousness of that child’s appearance before us was becoming most clear when neither Arlo nor I bothered to interact after his ordeal, both of us instinctively kept apart, just standing there wondering who that child was to us and the situation we had found ourselves within.

  “Sorry to barge in, he woke up and refused to wait,” Anara stated, all while Milena remained silently staring toward her daughter Pilly with a very similar nervous reaction as Pilly had to me, while everyone looked towards the shy and reserved little boy.

  “I like your name,” I said to the boy, continuing to ignore the others as I spoke to him one more time. My voice bringing his eyes back upwards towards my stare. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, you were named after a river that runs through the Lorelei, right?” I said. The child nodding, smart and old enough to understand what I was saying. “You know, I recently went there myself. It’s a very beautiful place,” I added, trying to warm him up to me, only to feel further confused over an obvious connection I seemed to have with him and his stare. Like both our minds were already perfectly linked.

  “I was born there,” the little toddler quietly announced to me, timidly peering over to Arlo before letting go of Pilly and launching himself into my arms invitingly.

  From total alienation, I felt suddenly overcrowded, like I was the grand spectacle of the area, as not a single word of acknowledgement seemed to surround Arlo about his miraculous recovery from near death. It was becoming clear that there was something unsaid with the upmost importance about this mysterious kid, as just like back in the swamps when he was attacked, I was having an instant maternal reaction to protect him.

  He had jumped off Pilly completely as I held him reassuringly, with him burying his head into my chest, my shimmering pendant’s light highlighting his face and revealing the glowing set of amber eyes to Arlo and the rest of his family standing nearby.

  The significance of what was still unsaid had sent shivers down my own bones, although my body was trying to stay still so I would not shake him with the very trembles I continued to feel. My eyes were widened while I looked over to Arlo, the only one completely oblivious to what I was beginning to understand.

  “I’m sorry,” Pilly said to me, snatching Avernus back from me protectively. “This might be a bit weird for you, but it is much harder for him to process,” she quipped, backing him away from us.

  The weak prince started limping over towards me while I stood frozen, staring at the child being taken back from me. Anara tried to stop him from walking closer, but he shrugged her off, moving towards Pilly and the child.

  I drew my hand back to cover my own shock and gasp.

  “What is it?” Arlo asked, still confused or in denial to the obvious. “Who is he?” Arlo continued. “Who is he?!” he asked again, directing his words toward Pilly in a stern demand for someone to give an answer. “Is he our son?” he finally dared to ask, his confusion and fear appearing almost hostile.

  “No,” Pilly replied, backing away from the two of us, Avernus still in her arms. “He’s Levi’s son,” Pilly announced, seeming annoyed by the very notion of him being related to Arlo and me. “The father you poked a sword into,” she then snarled to him, walking past Arlo as she rushed Avernus t
owards Milena to take. “Take him home. He has had enough time with Grandpa today.”

  Pilly put Avernus down against the ground of Milena as her mother took him by his hand. “How was Grandpa today?” Milena asked him as she started walking and tugging him back in the direction of the hut, the child staring back at me, ignoring Milena’s question, but continuing to walk with her.

  We watched them turn the corner and disappear into the fields, the four of us all staggered for words. Pilly handed me a large strange fruit she tugged down from the nearest plantation angrily, squashing it into my right hand, expecting me to pass it over to the prince so that she wouldn’t have to.

  “Clean waters up there on the top level of the distilling platform,” she directed to us, walking up the pedestal stalks towards the bright staked scarecrow figure illuminating above. “Hurry up,” she snapped rudely.

  Arlo was hunching over, puffing from his walk like an old man who needed to rest his arm against his knee each forward step he took, swaying as he struggled to stay upright due to either shock or severe blood-loss and anaemia.

  “Let me help you,” I offered, putting his uninjured arm around my shoulders. His usual pride just as enervated as he accepted mine and Anara’s combined help without a fuss, the three of us shuffling him up the inclining wooden post stairs towards the bright glowing centre stake on the second level raised boardwalk platform.

  “Are you ok?” I finally whispered to Arlo as I watched him faintly try to walk on his own, stubbornly struggling to move alone.

  “Don’t fall for this con,” he whispered back, appearing to think we were victims of the same dream-walking perception I had at the beginning of our arrival into their world.

  “This is real Arlo,” I said to him.

  “It’s not, it has to be staged,” he said as we wandered up towards a top level wooden stake and pyre of which the bright illuminated scarecrow remained chained to, overlooking the entirety of the swampy crop field.

  “There’s someone here to see you, Dad,” Pilly said. “And I’m quite sick of them all, so they’re your responsibility now,” she added.

  The white glare that blinded us suddenly dimming as the motionless statue figure behind it began to move and swivel its head in face of us, cracking and creaking as an old dry man awoke from his slumber. Her father, Helios, begun emerging out from his shine, red and raw as if he had been set a flame, wriggling against the chains that bound him to that stake, squinting his eyes as he tried to recognize each of our faces.

  It took a few seconds for our own eyes to adjust to the darkness. “Dad?!” Arlo cried out exhaustedly, breaking free from Anara and my grip as he climbed the pile of wooden blocks that elevated him as he tugged at the chains attempting to free his skinny frail father – a burnt dying man who dangled down from the shackles weakly in stare at all of us.

  “No don’t! Leave them please. I have the key,” Helios said wearily. “They stop me from falling in case I collapse,” he said.

  Pilly moved to find a bucket of fresh water beside the right corner of the platform, appearing unfazed by the sight of him as she pulled out a glass cup from that bucket and filled it up with as much water as it could carry. “Father, you let Duke out of your sight again. You can’t keep doing that,” she warned him, before pushing the cup into Arlo’s hands.

  “What happened to you all?” Arlo asked in a state of fret and panic. “What is going on?” he added, his swaying more heavy and uncontrolled as I quickly moved over to hold him, failing to find any objects on that platform where he could sit down upon.

  “As if you haven’t figured that out yet,” Helios said. “Our world is doomed. The plants just don’t grow naturally anymore, and I can’t keep this farm alive for much longer,” he divulged. “We have weeks left, if not days, here.”

  “Then why do it?” Arlo asked hysterically.

  “Why live?” Pilly snickered back.

  “No,” Arlo snapped. “Why stay in The Borderlands? Just remove those chains and run, even The Badlands must be better than living like this”.

  “We have no choice, they patrol the borders,” Helios replied. “We’re prisoners, and my service here helps ensure everyone’s survival, that was the deal I struck in order to spare my family after the mutiny we committed,” he stated gravely to us, Pilly edging at the very notion of the word, clearly a fresh memory and touchy subject for her to have and deal with as she went back to fidgeting and twirling that small bronze ring around her finger most submissively.

  “Levi was all we had left,” Pilly said, fighting off a few tears as she tried to tell the story. “He was going to be the one who did it, the one who stopped Midas. But now that hope is dead, because all the heroes we once had trying to save us are either dying or already dead, leaving only the villains fighting for what little scraps are left,” she added quite dramatically.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go... I have a castle to help siege and a doctor to abduct,” she stated, descending down the planks and wandering off without us.

  The bruised ripe red fruit she gave me was still oozing slightly in the palm of my hand, an item heaps more valuable to them than any caravan of silver and gold offered to shroud that truth.

  It was a lot to process in the space of a minute. The world I once knew felt upside down, a dark truth about things once considered valiant and heroic were starting to feel catastrophic and heartless. I thought about the body count records our kingdom kept as a means of glorifying the soldiers who climbed the ranks – those numbers suddenly given names and faces of random passer-by’s I had seen in my every day.

  Our royal family had stopped the regime of a man who had only wished to fix a world he’d accidentally devastated. And because of such advancements provided by his son, we had an even brighter and more stable Sunspire than the one we had before. One that could completely eclipse this world, exterminating them all, and leaving no trace that they ever existed in the first place.

  “You’ll have to forgive her rudeness,” Helios said before us, in reference to her daughter’s bitter departure. “No one has lost more in this world than she has,” he said, sympathetic to the toll taken on everyone in his family, despite the agony he suffers on their joint behalf. “You have to understand that our war was not meant to be out of anger, but survival... Breaching the veil between worlds was the only way to prevent total starvation.”

  “And what of those you have taken from us?” Arlo argued. “Clearly you wouldn’t waste your precious food on them, how can you justify doing that?” he battered to his own exhaustion, refusing to take a smell or bite from the fruit I was trying to offer him.

  “It is true,” Helios confessed, “We do forget there are casualties on both sides – the price of two kingdoms trying to do the best with what they have,” he added with a fairly impartial attitude. “But it was your kin who turned a blind eye to us, and only you who now have the power to stop that.”

  “We never knew about any of this before!” Anara snapped, finally voicing her own frustration into the mixed pot that platform had concocted.

  “Because you didn’t want to know,” Helios bickered back. “You refused to consider what your own parents were doing – I mean, no one fears the darkness quite like your mother…” he cryptically added. Most strange as that was the second time I had heard that exact sentence been said out loud. “Funny thing is,” Helios continued, “we here honestly can’t say that we would have done things differently in your position.” He laughed with a poor taste of humour.

  “The fact is, although some of us have lost a lot – there are some of us who have lost even more than that,” he continued. “And it’s those tormented souls who are now calling all the shots. Like my old friend, our king, who is so haunted by his own past mistakes that he is beyond any realms of saving… A man who only cared about doing what was right, but now is willing to destroy our entire world if it means taking yours down with it.”

  “Pilly is an enslaved officer
of Midas’s Imperial Guard, and she committed the highest level of treason just to bring you here before me today… Just as it’s high treason for me to inform you of exactly where Midas and Camilla will be tonight, now that they know of your plans to permanently fix the Sunspire in your world,” he revealed, putting as much emphasis on how crucial the seriousness of the situation was for all of us concerned. “He is gathering his army in an old monastery to the west, and is preparing them for an all-out assault on your Capital. Not just a siege or an ambush, but a full scale fight to the death, with only one world capable of prevailing.”

  “That’s insane!” Arlo exclaimed, suddenly bursting with energy. “He can’t possibly think he’ll win with a strategy like that,” he stated, enraged by its very prospect.

  “Maybe, but he just doesn’t care anymore,” Helios responded.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way though!” Anara intervened, “We can have peace,” she pouted, pushing forward to make her point as clear as possible.

  “But let me guess, you want us three to fight for your world instead?” Arlo asked with a sceptic, yet skewed, cynicism towards his weary deteriorating chained up father.

  “Yes, I do” Helios said in a hopeful beg for our involvement.

  “I came here for my friends and family, that’s it, end of story,” Arlo stated. “If Midas wants to launch an assault on our castle, then he’ll be dead within the night and your problem will be solved,” he then shouted apathetically. “Why should we risk our lives to help save your world?”

  “Arlo, we have to do something. What their king will do is suicide,” I intervened, trying to support that old man for the true righteousness of his cause.

  “No, it’s genocide,” Anara corrected. “And we are going to help you.”

  “No, we won’t, girls,” Arlo then refuted.

  “This man’s daughter saved your life,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, and when we get home, I will provide an armed escort for our doctor to come here and save her brother as penance,” he stated.