Beyond the Leaning City Chapter XVI

Well, I'm behind on rooms for the dwarf thing and I'm behind on fixing tags, and I have accepted an outside cartography gig, because otherwise I might catch up.

So anyway, chapter XVI, possibly.

 

XVI

Voyage in the Underboat.

He was overwhelmed immediately, made helpless by the pressing weight of the onslaught. A scuffling, struggling moment ended with a blunt impact and he went down.

Thront hovered on the edge of senselessness for several moments; the greenskins hauled him around; he was trussed up and carried across the decks. The jellyhead he had killed was being carried in much the same fashion; black ichor dripped from the remaining portion of its ruined head.

Imagine, heads made of jelly, Thront thought. How very stupid- especially to go out without a helmet.

The greenskins' heads also had a gelatinous portion, but it was much smaller and looked like a large, juicy blister on their brow ridge.

They talked in a buzzing dialect; Thront caught a word here and there: Sacrifice- something about a priest, submersion, but their enunciation was rough and inarticulate; he found himself unable to make any real sense of their speech.

He suspected he'd killed the one that could talk.

After walking for about a quarter hour, they came to the edge of a ship, just another in a long series, this one a half sunken power-galley. The party came to an unexpected halt.

Thront grew more nervous.

The greenskins dropped him onto the deck; a throng of them closed around him. For a terrifying instant, he feared they would toss him over the side, into the icy sea- but their only task was to affix a makeshift harness of rope around his chest and arms. Gently, the greenskins lowered him over the side, and into the hands of some of their fellows, who stood in a waiting boat. The corpse of the jelly head followed.

Six of the greenskins manned the long boat; those who remained above disappeared from sight.

Someone took up the sculling oar, and the boat slid noiselessly through a crevice of wood and ice. Thront scrutinized every turn and twist of the waterway, committing each element of their course to memory.

Mist drifted through the weird canal, and vibrals took to their quivering flight within it.

The longboat coasted around a sharp corner, entering onto a long and misty corridor. The Greenskin in the prow of the craft mad a noise of excited surprise; his fellow at the oar commenced immediately to back water. The four greenskins in between them drew needle slender swords.

The dark green water in front of the boat exploded into white froth; something huge and gleaming, four or five times the size of The Siren, broke the surface. Thront thought it at first to be a gargantuan fish, but the top of it popped open and a jellyhead climbed out.

It was an underwater ship! How extraordinary.

The jellyhead stepped down onto the stylized hull of the underwater vessel. Several greenskins clambered out the hatch behind him.

The greenskin in the bow of the longboat stood; he raised his arms and began to speak.

More greenskins were coming out the underboat's hatch; there were more than twice as many standing on the hull of the underwater boat as there were in the longboat.

Thront shifted in his place.

The jellyhead turned his back on the speaking greenskin.

No one moved.

One of the greenskins standing on the hull of the underwater boat bared his teeth and howled; he drew a knife and leapt into the long boat. His companions followed immediately.

A short and bloody altercation ensued. The greenskins fought with knives, savaging each other with a frightening, blood-spattering zeal.

The battle was excelled in savagery only by its brevity.

When it was over, ten bodies lay in the water. The crew of the Underboat was victorious.

The jellyhead crossed over to the longboat he studied Thront intently for several minutes before moving on to the body of his dead counterpart.

He made a low and gurgling sound in his throat-stem. Thront took it to be laughter.

Another team of greenskins hauled Thront aboard the underwater boat. After being lowered through the hatch, he was placed in the center of a high-ceilinged cabin. The circular space was both baroque and precise. Several bookshelves clustered along the rear walls, volumes locked in place with gleaming brass bars; a finely crafted sculpture of a strangely proportioned fish sat atop a marble pedestal. Complex looking wheels and levers were spaced about the room; a great many of them clustered with tube-like nodes and bubbles a-flash with green and yellow light.

The bridge?

He continued his examination: a circular window allowed for one hundred and eighty degrees of vision to the front. The water beyond the glass churned and frothed. The corpse of the jellyhead plunged past dragging bubbles in its wake; the longboat followed immediately after.

Something clanged behind and above- a hatch perhaps? the leader entered. He walked directly to the dense and ridiculously complicated wheel, light, lever array and began making adjustments.

Thront watched him closely. A moment later he felt the sensation of descent.

Dark water washed over the window.

 

 

But for a gentle hum originating somewhere towards the rear of the vessel, the underboat ran without noise. Thront gazed out the window, rapt by the undreamt of spectacle before him; damaged, breached hulls (the underside of the Ship's Boneyard, he realized) rolled past overhead, like a sky of inverted, jagged and gray dunes. Occasional shifts in angle and direction afforded him brief glimpses of the sea floor and the greenskin farmers at work there. Light punctured the gray/green darkness at random intervals, filtering through hull-breaks and spaces between the hulks; glittering and hypnotic, fish of all shapes and sizes and colors darted in and out of the luminous shafts.

A large shadow drifted past. Some of the greenskin sailors made uncomfortable noises, but the tension dissolved before Thront could discern its source.

The jellyhead pushed a lever; a bell rang.

Several more greenskins carried in, and set up an array of lamps against one wall.

When the multi-colored lamps had been lit the other lights on the bridge were dimmed.

Thront was fascinated.

The jellyhead stepped between Thront and the lamps; he began to move, thrashing his arms above his head.

"Welcome most honored one." He said.

"Me?" Thront pointed at his own chest.

"You. Welcome among us, oh blessed sacrifice; know that I am Vissel Hroof." The arm motion caused the light to refract through Hroof's gelatinous head in a shimmering coalescing way.

"Sacrifice?"

Thront had erroneously supposed that he could not become any more apprehensive about his situation.

"Yes, you will be our offering to the Icyarch on the first night of dark concordance; I will make the offer and your lifeblood will be the river whose current my people will follow into the next epoch."

"What makes me the sacrifice?" Thront said. "Why not somebody else?"

"Because you bear the Lurr, our precious and holy seed, born out into the world by good Vissel Droon and now brought back to us by your consecrated hand and by the divine will of the Icyarch."

"Seed. Hmm. Silver thing shaped like an egg?" Thront squirmed in his bonds.

"Yes that is our seed; please allow us to take possession of it once again."

"Interestingly enough, I don't have your seed; I'm not even sure who does anymore." Thront said. "Could be at the bottom of the sea for all I know."

No sound but a gentle hum from somewhere in the vessel's rear.

Shortly afterward, and for the remainder of the undersea journey Thront was confined to a tiny oblong room without a port. He wasn't exactly certain he had been demoted from holy sacrifice to regular prisoner, but he knew his status was in question. He suspected, though, that in the long run it would make precious little difference into which category he was placed.

 

Beyond the Leaning City part?

I still haven't fixed the tags, and I'm sick so it's not happening today.

 

XV

Mouths to feed

 

Meafle food was disgusting.

Kal ate as he walked, spitting out half of what he put in his mouth. Some kind of seafood, or a vegetable; whatever it was it tasted nasty. Is it rotten, or do meafles like to eat crap?

The deck he was crossing was crusted with ice and very slippery. The ice formed odd formations: spikes and pillars, glistening fins and thin walls. Kal paused and examined the unnatural seeming arrangements. What could cause such shapes? It's almost as if there's some kind of aesthetic...

He continued to walk, eyeing the effulgent walls and nodes of ice. He ran his fingers along the surface of one; some of it melted onto his fingertip; greasy and sticky, it was definitely not frozen water.

Kal stopped in his tracks. He heard a clicking noise. It cut out abruptly.

He turned around and began walking briskly the way he had come. He took ten steps and walked into a thin wall of ice made invisible by the failing light.

Something slid across the air above him.

Kal whirled around, and looked up; he caught a slight glimpse of something white and furry. He dug around in his pocket and was happy to find his rubber glove. He put it on and cranked up the static caster.

He made another attempt to return in the direction he had come, but it soon became apparent that the way had changed; there were walls of ice now that had not existed before, and he quickly became turned around.

He heard the clicking noise again, and something moved at the edge of his vision. A writhing, white shape dropped from above; Kal rolled out from underneath the falling thing, and flipped the static caster's toggle. Light arched in the corridor of ice; its brightness refracted in planes and angles all around him, defining the labyrinth of frost he'd wandered into.

A white and round-bodied creature, about the size of a large melon, stood before him for an instant, pinned by the caster's bolt. A clenching, spiny cone of flesh protruded from its back, and a wattle of greasy looking skin hung from its underside.

It exploded. The caster bolt winked out of existence.

Before the light vanished Kal saw ten or twelve more of the creatures headed directly for him. Icenids, he had read about them in Kleema's Codified Natural Index.

Clikclickclikclikclcikck. They came over and through the ice.

Losing no time, Kal, turned about and ran, banging and bouncing off invisible walls. Another of the loathsome things barred his way; slashing wildly his knife; he pinned it to the deck, and won free of the swarm for a moment.

He breathed and tried to think; one thing was for certain: If he attempted to find his way out of this maze the Icenids would run him down.

Clickclickclcik-

They were coming again, from every direction. Kal cranked up the caster and fired at the deck; a small and smoldering gap formed in the planking. Kal knifed another icenid, and cranked the caster again; and once more; his third shot left the hole large enough. He jumped.

He fell into cold darkness. Several heartbeats in the air and-

He splashed into water, plunging deep. Cold.

He pulled himself up to the surface. Cold and soaked.

He had escaped; he laughed and looked up; round, falling silhouettes came between himself and the light.

"Bowels," he said and started to swim. A patch of dim light shone to his left; he splashed and floundered towards it. He came the source of the illumination: a breach in the hull, and pulled himself onto its ragged lip.

A wide spar poked through the break- had perhaps been the original cause of it- Kal shimmied up it and through the jagged opening and came out into the misted night. He heard splashing in the darkness behind him.

The moons were up, and the fog was less copious than usual, snow fell in large, slow flakes. The spar led Kal out over a wide patch of open water; he could see the shadowed outline of the Boneyard's continued presence bordering the lagoon like expanse he was climbing over.

The spar came to an end; he hung inches above the frosty water.

Clickclcikclcikclik-

Kal pushed himself up on his hands and swiveled around. Icenids clambered down the pole: ten or more. Facing them, he dropped into a crouch and balanced on the beam, drew his knife. Clickclikcclikcclik they swarmed towards him.

The air shifted, and there was a great noise off to the left, in the center of the 'lagoon'. Everything else stopped: Kal turned his head.

A huge black shape exploded up out of the sea; runnels and streams of night dark water coursed down its flanks; over its scales. It opened a mouth large enough to have swallowed The Siren in one neat bite; teeth lined back in rows, disappearing into a black gullet.

It roared and pushed across the water. The Icenids clacked and scurried back through the breach.

Laughing, Kal raised his knife and held it up between himself and the onrushing leviathan.

 

Beyond the Leaning City: Part...hurrr... something

Note: having just gone through the earlier posts, in attempt to link them all here I realize that at least three separate entries have been labeled as part 4, and the tags are either non existent or screwed. Don't do drugs or pursue a higher degree kids; it will fuck you up. Anyway, I'll fix it sll sometime today. I just wanted to get this chapter up first, because I have my daily writing on the current novel in progress to get to before I can screw with the 'technical' side of the blog. Priorities: mine are all fucked up- and my brain is only partially functional. This text will be replaced with the proper links later today and I will fix the tags.

My hypothetically sincere apologies go out to all hypothetical new readers for the hypothetical inconvenience.

XIV

Sursha alone

 

The green humanoids surged forward. Thront grabbed Sursha with one huge hand. "Do what you can for me." He jerked his massive arm back and hurled her up into the air. She flew rump first for a moment, and managed one last glance at Thront as the attackers swarmed over him, and then mist gusted between them and she was turning, trying to guide her flight.

Sursha sailed upward in a tremendous arc; She spread her arms out, and her ascent began to slow; then she was angling downward. She had no idea how high up she was; the fog blocked her vision. It was like falling through an endless cloud, only it wasn't endless; it would be coming to an end any second: a frigid, wet end- or a smashing, solid one. It occurred to Sursha that she wasn't entirely happy with Thront. She hadn't asked to be hurled into space.

She saw a shadow, thin, and narrow; she lunged out for it; she missed. She hit an icy, flat and sharply canted surface with tooth jarring impact and bounced back into space. She tumbled through the air, past a mast; she caught it for an instant with her tail, damping her velocity a bit; a flock of vibrals that had been roosting on it cooed and twitched into the air.

She flew through a tangle of blue vines; she grappled at them with her entire body. She caught a vine with her tail and another with her hands. She came to a stop. The blue creepers were burning cold against her skin.

She hung motionless, but only for an instant. The vines discorperated, melting. The one holding most of her weight came apart, and she began her second descent, slower and jerkier than the first. She was able to control her fall through the vines. Shaky legged and out of breath Sursha came to a rest on the tilted deck of a wooden barge.

She sat and wheezed until her chest loosened; when she felt better, she tried to backtrack, but could not find the place where she and Thront had met the greenskins.

Frustrated she broke off her search to find shelter for the night. She slept in a half collapsed deckhouse; her small camp stove burned beside her, emitting heat but no light. She sat up well into the darkness and listened to the rhythmic and liquid, creaking noise of the Boneyard.

#

 

In the morning Sursha walked aimlessly for several hours; she moved in an expanding circle, looking all the while for tracks or other signs of her friends.

She climbed from deck to deck; it grew colder as she walked, and the mist seemed to be made up of tiny ice particles. The air was salt sharp and fresh though, and there was a peaceful silence that seemed to exist in spite of the presence of noise.

She saw several of the scuttling, white furred sphere creatures; they seemed to nest in the ice. She stopped to watch a small troop; they did indeed have circular mouths on their backs, not really on their backs though- their legs seemed to be double jointed and they flipped over at will; some moved with the sack-like organ up, others scurried about with it dragging underneath them; they all flipped back and forth; it was rather disturbing to watch; but hardly their most unsettling aspect. She watched a group of them swarm down a spar to the waters edge. Their mouths: tooth lined clenching funnels- ugly enough to begin with- popped out; that is, went from being an interior funnel to an exterior cone; a cone of contracting flesh; bristling with needles. The creatures leaned into the water whipping their inside-out mouths back and forth. One came up with a tooth-impaled fish, releasing a belching sucking noise as it drew its mouth and meal both into its body.

Sursha writhed with displeasure and walked quickly away from the rail.

Snow commenced to fall in the late afternoon; she came upon the tracks not long after. The marks in the snow trailed perpendicular her own course. They were Kal's; she was sure of it.

They seemed fresh; she ran along their length, leaping from ship to ship. She used any means possible to speed her progress, improvising as she went, her only concern was following the tracks.

She was almost on top of the two norts before she saw them.

They whirled to face her. For an instant the three of them stood like a triangle.

"Nact female," said Barin.

"Disgusting." Thane moved in closer. "Do not move, she-nact, we wish to speak to you." His snout flexed and his star shape mouth opened and closed, he spread his arms wide; and clacked his sharp, armored fingers together.

Sursha screamed.

 

Beyond the leaning City: Part 5

Sorry, I forgot to put this up yesterday.

 

 

VI

The Rite of Lawful Obsequiousness

 

Kal woke up with a pounding in his head. No, it was in his left leg, his knee. What had he done to it? He was sprawled on the bathing pool's reclining edge, half submerged. He pulled himself out of the pool and hobbled across the room and flopped across a low couch. For a moment he became involved in the tactile sensation of the couch's fabric against his skin: smooth and soft and-

No use pretending. The pounding existed in neither his head nor his knee.

Someone was at the door.

They weren't shy about using the knock plate, either. Kal forced himself to sit up. Very unpleasant. The main room/bath area was wrecked; empty jugs; furniture overturned; garbage littered the floor and floated in the tub; Thront, his snores sounding rather congested, lay eye down in a congealed pool of suspicious origin.

Kal stood. Painful. He considered hand walking across the room, but decided it would be pretentious, and hopped to the door on one foot instead. He paused on his way across the room long enough to deliver three bouncing kicks into Thront's side.

"Get up," he said. "Someone's here."

The pounding continued. Kal hopped the remaining distance to the door; he passed the looking glass on the way. The green shirt had a dark stain shaped like an open lotus, almost; his sash was gone and the tan leggings were a muddy brown; dye dripped from them onto the floor. His hair had lost its gloss and was bunched together in steel colored tufts. He was amazingly unsightly and he became distracted by the sight.

But.

The pounding. Always the pounding.

Kal opened the door. The morning light was too bright. He held a hand before his eyes.

Two nort stood at the threshold. They were impeccably dressed, in formal orange, the color of the buerophant caste, and wore impressive purple ribbons tied into intricate bows at each joint. One wore a complicated harness-sash around his sub thorax and abdomen. Each bore a polished and ornate powerstave.

Pained by the too bright morning's light, Kal looked at them through splayed fingers.

The nort in the harness-thing leaned forward, lowered a long snout and looked down it at Kal with black, oval shaped eyes.

"Why have you not reported for the March of Lawful Obsequiousness?" The nort bent and swayed on its four hind legs. The tube of its muzzle terminated in a diamond shaped orifice, which, during speech, convulsed and folded in unlikely ways.

"March?" Kal rubbed his head and squinted; his tail was bunched up in the seat of his trousers; it was beginning to itch, and his left leg ached badly. A march? What a terrible idea.

Best to be brisk with these official types.

"No thank you. None today." Kal swung the door.

The en-harnessed nort thrust the butt of his powerstave into the door jam. He made an inarticulate noise, consisting mostly of guttural clicks and buzzes, and turned his eyes once more towards Kal. The other buerophant turned away, as if in polite embarrassment.

"'No thank you', unfortunately, is not an option this morning my foreign, little friend. I am the sub-arch prefect of this district, and it is my honor to inform you that it is the law that you participate in the march on the first full day of every five moon cycle in which you retain a residence in Xiang-Xiang or on Zimtur Isle." He interposed a scroll made of glittering plaspyrus. "Punishment for non- compliance is as follows: Offenders shall have the flesh of one primary appendage flayed, or removed in a fashion that is most painful to the individual offender. Said offender shall forthwith be driven from the provinces of Xiang-Xiang and banned from their use forever more."

"Flayed..." Kal was waking up.

"You have no vestments?" The Buerophant leaned close.

"No vestments." Kal repeated; the flat black eyes had a hypnotic, anesthetic quality about them. "Are we really expected to keep track of a custom that only comes into play once every five hundred years?"

The sub-arch Prefect turned to his companion.

"Ah, these foreigners: they dwell in our bejeweled city and make use of its luxuries, but they cannot be bothered to learn even our most fundamental customs." He wagged his long head. "Larvabrother Thane, will you return to the car and fetch a set of the robes."

"What happens here?" Thront stood behind Kal.

"What indeed?" The nort replied. "Sir," it addressed Kal. "Please inform your domestic that you have failed to prepare yourself for the March of Lawful Obsequiousness and that if you do not do so and report to the courtyard before the Rook Mesiquitar and join in the mandated observance, the full penalty of the law will be visited upon you."

"Did you refer to me as a 'domestic'?"

"Yes. I see that I have erred." The nort twisted its head up at Thront. "I feel it necessary to apologize for my transgression; I also feel it needful- for no particular reason- to remind you that striking a member of the Buerophant caste is an offense of the highest magnitude, and could lead to punishment as severe as whole body flaying, or even lethal orifice expansion." The other nort came up the steps. The sub-arch prefect looked at him sadly. "My apologies, brother; but would you be so good as to fetch another vestment. A rather large set, please."

"I-" Thront began.

"You will remain silent." The Prefect arched his neck and thrust his snout into Thront's face. "I will hear no further protests, or complaints; you should be grateful that I have saved your hands from the Hungry Glove and your household from eviction."

The other buerophant reappeared. He carried two bundles of brightly colored cloth.

"Come now, don the garments." The Prefect clucked.

"If you run you can make the next ferry and still have enough time to walk across town."

"We can afford a cab-"

"No, it would invalidate the ritual; be thankful you are not compelled to swim the channel. We have talked long enough; put on the sacred garments and be on your way. Or we will call the guard and have you taken to your reward."

Without further ado or complaint Kal and Thront donned the costumes.

Kal locked up the house; goaded by the nort, he and Thront ran down the lane, towards the ferry. The sub-arch prefect and his companion were walking towards the next house as Kal rounded the corner.

They ran down the street, turning at the swaybacks. The costumes were puffy; complicated affairs, with bells sewn into the hem of the robe, and whistles fitted into the headdress; they made an awful racket descending the hill, and by the time they came to the bottom they were being followed by a group of curious children.

When they reached the pier they went immediately aboard the ferry, which was for the best; the curiosity initially exhibited by the band of children had swiftly transformed into hostile ridicule; rocks and other small missiles followed them up the boarding plank.

They had the ferry mostly to themselves.

"Strange. You would expect more foreigners with the rite and all," Thront said. The ferry paddled away from the dock. "Never heard of it- what's it called again?"

"The March of Lawful Obsequiousness, or some such." Kal placed a finger on his lips. "Odd isn't it?"

"That we've never heard of it? No not really, the norts are law crazy; who can keep track-"

"Why do you suppose the prefect had a radiation detector?"

"A what?" Thront stood up; his headdress whistled and rang.

"You didn't see it?"

"Why didn't you say anything?" Thront tore at the 'vestment'.

"I thought you saw it," Kal said. "Are you insane, don't destroy that, we'll get flayed.".

Thront blinked hard; a green film slid over his eye. "Don't be stupid," he said. "Come on." He ran to the side of the ferry and vaulted the rail into the channel.

Kal returned to the bungalow some time later. He found Thront sitting in the drawing room. The house was much as they had left it, but for the smashed in front door and the hole dug in the courtyard floor.

"They take my 'caster too?" Kal asked.

Thront bobbed his ocular case. "And they made us wear shameful hats. There is no greater insult."

Kal perched on the edge of the stone table.

"They were friends of Wister. As were those blackguards that accosted us last night" Thront waved his arms. "Of that I am certain."

"We must recover it. We must. Wister knew it was a treasure map, that's why he turned it off. We need to retrieve it."

"That will most likely be impossible, at least in the short run." Thront took a carafe of nhurr out of the cupboard, flipped away the lid with his thumb and took a long drink. He put the vessel on the table and sat down. "They're probably on their way there right now."

"How can you be so calm? We've lost a possible fortune."

"There is no reason to get excited, beyond the fact that we have been betrayed and robbed, anyway; you see, I memorized the map last night."

"Memorized it?"

"Completely."

"Than we can go after them," Kal said. "Maybe we can catch them."

"If I am correct in my assumptions catching them will be the least of our problems. Wister owns only one boat: a barge, we could leave three days from now and still overtake him. But I doubt we could afford to finance such an enterprise with our current resources."

Kal swung down from the cabinet and took a drink of nhurr. "We must find a way; there is more than treasure at stake here."

"I agree." Thront slammed his massive three-fingered fist down onto the table, shaking the entire house. "We must swear a pact! Someone must pay for my wearing of the shameful hat."

Thront held out his massive hand. Kal grasped it, and they made an angry oath, both swearing never to rest until they had taken the full measure of their vengeance.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

next week: Sursha.

 

Beyond the Leaning City, Part Two

 

 

 

III

Wister The Gurrd

 

"You have no idea why it attacked you?" Thront leaned over the table and scrutinized the artifact with his one great eye. His hulking, amber-armored form reflected on its surface.

"No idea." Kal was perched on the rail, working the cork of a nhurr bottle with his knife. A warm wind drifted up from the south.

"You didn't attack it, or say anything rude, or-"

"Enough with that, you sound like Sursha, what do you think about the egg."

"Lettering looks like Nhadite epoch, maybe Gharnilt Dynasty. I don't know. Sursha could tell you."

"Sursha's not here," Kal said and frowned, thinking of that most unexpected disappointment, but, just then, the cork came free of the bottle; his face brightened at once, and he took a long drink.

"She'll be here in a few days," Thront said.

"Not soon enough. Anyway, I want to give it to her as my reunion gift. I need to know what it is... And consider this, One-eye, what if there are more of these-" Kal paused and hopped down. He paced, one finger raised in the air as if he were testing the wind. Lights of Xiang-Xiang burned over his shoulder, across the water, their essence gentled by distance and swirling seahaze. "What if there are more of these- ASSASSINS about."

"Assassins?" Thront reached for the nhurr.

Kal took another long drink before surrendering the bottle.

"Assassins," he said. "A dark brotherhood of squishy headed killers pledged to destroy me. And this," he held up the egg. "Our only key to the mystery."

Atop Zimtur Hill, and across the bay in the belfry of the Rook Mesiquitar, the tones of the hour sounded. Kal stared at the distant city; two moons hung in the early evening sky: Vasmet in the east, Sfent in the southwest.

Thront lifted the silver egg. "I know somebody in the city."

"Trustworthy?" Kal's attention remained fixed upon the bay.

Thront held the egg up close to his eye. An extremely curios piece. Very odd.

Thront moved the object closer, turning it slowly. "We'll see him in the morning. His place is on Fish Street." Thront continued to turn the artifact in his fingers. "We'll come back here after and get ready. The festival begins tomorrow night."

Kal nodded. The purpling of the sky was complete, and Geesta, the third moon, hovered on the eastern horizon.

#

Kal looked askance at the sloppy, peeling letters of the poorly painted sign.

"The Chamber of Unlikely Rarities," he read aloud, wrinkling his nose at the stink which issued from the fish stalls on either side of the tiny shop.

"Never mind how it looks," Thront said, "Wister the Gurrd knows artifacts, probably as well as Sursha."

Kal coughed and made an unpleasant face.

"Let's go inside then, if for no other reason than to escape this waft."

Thront nodded and shoved open the decrepit door.

An untidy cram of disparaging items awaited them beyond the threshold, a smorgasbord of device and trinket, like a dream overfull of image and portent.

Packed with merchandise, several long shelves and two locked display cabinets crowded the cramped space.

The only other customer, a tall and whipcord thin, yellow-furred meafle, examined a rack of knives, his snout crinkled in a dubious expression.

At the back of the room, behind a counter strewn with tech trash, perched atop a stool, was the owner, Wister the Gurrd: a tri-ocular being, Wister very much resembled a worn out and moldering bean bag chair, tied off at the top with a handful of living snakes.

After making a momentary show of examining the stock, Thront approached the Gurrd. Snorting in an attempt to blow the fish-stink from his nostrils, Kal milled about idly, browsing. He looked at the contents of the locked display cases.

Junk, just as I thought.

As he turned away, though, one item, a mace, drew his eye. It had a wickedly curved haft and a spherical head of shining metal. Kal blinked, leaned closer, and looked again. A Thunderfist! The finest powerclub ever made.

Further consideration, however, made him frown. Thunderfist or not, the weapon looked to be in poor shape; filaments and small components bristled out of breaks up and down its length. In working order, it could bring down a house with a single, well placed blow, but it looked to be in an order far from working,

It might be reparable, how much...

Kal pressed his nose to the glass.

According to an attached tag, the club was priced at two hundred Zorms. Considerably out of his range.

Unless, I raid the group treasury...

He huffed in mock disgust and walked away from the case. Wandering down the next isle, he glanced at the rear of the store. Thront and the bag-creature were talking. Kal joined them.

"You Kal? I am Wister. Welcome. Welcome to shop," Wister said. "Friend monoch tells me that you have artifact of interest."

Kal nodded. He placed the silver ellipse on the counter.

"To sell?"

"I have not, as of yet, made a decision," Kal said in his most practiced, academic tone- he thought it important to sound important while dealing with the lower caste beings such as merchants. Thront rolled his eye. Kal ignored his companion or failed to notice, and went on, "But I would like very much to know what it is."

"Of course. Of course." Wister's voice rattled and was full of hissing, hard, flat noises, like a sliding avalanche of sand and small pebbles. Wister possessed no mouth, he vocalized by palpitating a drum-like fold of flesh at the center of his cranial tentacle node.

"Very wise,” Wister said. "Consultation fee two Zorms."

Thront slid the coins over the counter top.

"Memory egg." Wister, more flexible than he appeared, bent down and palpitated the artifact with his tendrils. Kal made a puckered face and took a half step back. "Sometimes can be turned on."

At first, nothing happened.

"Entertainment device. Most are pictures of strange budding," Wister said.

Strange budding? Kal looked at Thront, who shrugged.

Wister made a flatulent noise; Kal suspected it was a sigh of frustration, but held his breath to be safe.

The Gurrd probed and poked the memory egg.

A many hued, vertical plain, like a painting made of light, winked into existence directly above the object. Wister's lumpy profile shone partially through the semi-transparent image.

Asymmetrical shapes, hewn from light and sparkling dust, danced across the air. Ignoring the Gurrd, Kal gazed at them, rapt.

What is it? An abstract piece?

Kal reached out towards the floating picture with tentative fingers.

Wister flinched, and the image flashed and sputtered out of being.

"Shock. Shock." Rockslide volume. For several moments Wister went through a complicated pattern of tentacle positions. Thront laid his hand on the memory egg.

"Worth nothing," Wister said, at last, his voice measured and quiet. "Twenty Zorms."

"No thank you," Thront said.

"Worthless. More than worthless. Dangerous. Thirty Zorms."

"Not today, my good... er, Wister." Kal leaned forward took the egg from Thront. "I like it too much to sell, but my gratitude for your time." He bowed low, angling his tail (clad in a magnificent new sock of crimson silk, patterned with coiling serpents) in a general attitude of respectful appreciation.

They departed the shop. Thront caught the meafle staring as they went through the door. For a heartbeat he held its two eyes with his one. The door closed between them. Thront snorted with disgust and turned away.

Leaving the Chamber of Unlikely Rarities, Fish Street, and its attendant bouquet behind, the pair walked east to the city's edge, where they ascended a long flight of half-crumbled stairs and came onto the northern section of the High Palisade, a raised walkpath which ran along the top of the city wall. They moved slowly towards the Rook Mesiquitar and walked in the red taint of its shadow.

Late afternoon fog drifted southward from the sea of mist; ghostly fibrils of it hung low over the city. Below, to the left, surf crashed and raged, summer's placidity giving way to the will of the five moons.

Below, on the right, the thrashing sea was forgotten as the peoples of the city made ready for festival: scores of lamplighters spread hundreds of colored lights throughout the neighborhoods; children of innumerable species ran laughing over the cobbles, throwing bowls of colored water at one another in a mock recreation of Thingar's charge against the Meltarids; the bang and flash of fireworks, accompanied by occasional notes from festival horns, enhanced the burgeoning mood of festivity and abandon.

Kal and Thront paused on a landing just south of The Rook and looked down over a courtyard.

A newly erected stage stood against one wall. Small, hairy creatures, with a myriad of boneless and squirmy appendages, played a bouncing and discordant melody on angular, black-lacquered string instruments. A legless, bell-shaped being, rainbow feathered and with a convulsing, vertical mouthslit performed a wheeling, rolling dance on the platform before them.

Spectators gathered near the musicians, and at the far end of the courtyard, near the Dynastic Way arch, a band Thyggll were throwing brightly colored dart-worms at each other. Laughter and applause of a thousands sorts echoed, reflected, and vibrated against the flags.

The landing sported several benches. Kal and Thront took one with a good view of the court. They purchased cigarettes from a nortish vender and watched the activity below.

"Same thing every year. You'd think they'd come up with something new, with all five moons in the sky and what not." Thront moved his pupil in a bored fashion.

"He turned it off, you know," Kal said.

"I am certain of it." Thront carefully exhaled smoke; the wind blew some back into his eye. He blinked rapidly; seated close, Kal could hear the squeaking noise that accompanied each muscular contraction of the great eyelid.

"Perhaps if we experiment with it-" Kal stood up.

"That won't be necessary; I memorized the sequence and pattern of Wister's palpitations."

Delighted, Kal released a rather unpleasant laugh. "Why do you think he did it? Turned it off, I mean."

"We'll have to get it reactivated to know that."

"Home it is then," Kal said. "We can catch the half-day ferry, and come back across, later, when things get more interesting."

They resumed their walk along the palisade; all sorts of folk crowded the thoroughfare; Kal saw an entire party of dundaszi, a Jik, three zimtors, a few reptarchs, several beings he failed to classify, and a great many norts- the city's dominate species.

The crowd grew, progress slowed. In an attempt to numb himself from the displeasure of the press, Kal stopped off and bought a small cask of nhurr for the walk.

"Five, five, five moons arise, and then The Dark Concordance..." A doomsayer, a snit with a ridiculous, pink cranial fin, forced past them, presaging a larger crowd wending southward along the palisade.

The traditional parade form 'Seven Paper Behemoth's' rattled along the avenue, towards them. Fireworks flashed, snapped and barked at the feet of the puppet dancers.

Kal pushed back from the procession and took a drink. He passed the cask to Thront, and went up on the monoch's shoulders. Once up, he leapt onto the exterior wall, found handholds in the mortar gaps, and scrambled to the top of the battlement. He scanned the oncoming throng.

The festival was beginning early; already, he could see it would be a much more frantic affair than the year previous'; after all, it was the turn of the centiad, five moons instead of four. The Dark Concordance would follow, marking the passage of an age; and, it seemed, every yokel and fretseed farmbeing in all existence had traveled to the leaning city to celebrate the occasion.

The crowd surged and reveled as far as he could see. Travel any further along the High Palisade would be, if not impossible, at least tiring and inconvenient.

Thinking that backtracking might be faster, Kal looked south, towards the Dynastic Way stair; he caught a glimpse of something yellow in the crowd.

Kal looked closer, squinted; the meafle from The Chamber of Unlikely Rarities walked northward.

He scrambled down the wall and returned to Thront. He took the cask and had a long drink. "Being followed," he said. Blue drops rushed down his chin, vanished into his collar.

"Please." Thront squinted with amusement. "The fellow from Wister's? Are you just spotting him now?"

Kal snorted. "Don't be silly. I marked him a quarter span ago."

They moved forward a bit. Thront swiveled his ocular case and panned behind. "He's still a good way back; lets split up- meet me at the ferry.

Kal nodded and without further discussion went over the side of the palisade. He leapt into space, careened through the air, and disappeared into a gust of roof fog.

 

 

#

 

Thront came off the stairs at a trot; he avoided the high traffic of Dynastic Way, and chose to travel the smaller, more residential streets instead.

Compressed buildings of blonde wood and azure mud brick crowded tight against one another. A mandate of the City's forgotten founder demanded style and cleanliness from residents; and indeed, stained glass, tooled woodwork, and tasteful fittings of magentax abounded; but although almost all the homes were attractive individually, and aesthetically pleasing in the context of their neighborhoods, a great many of them, the majority, in fact, were poorly built. Nearly every building leaked in the rain and exhibited cracks in its walls. Houses slumped and huddled, leaning towards each other across narrow alleys and constricted streets, like drunk and belligerent sailors.

There were braces everywhere, built of wood and stone, or sometimes hard, ebony crystal from Herratzu in the east. Many of these supports doubled as walkways and terraces; cafes were often built atop arches overgrown with flowers and leafy plants, further cluttering the upper spaces of the city, and hiding the streets below in nearly perpetual, if not unpleasant, shade.

Thront used the raised walkways and the tight, jubilant confusion of the narrow surface streets to lose himself. Emerging from the neighborhoods, he came out onto Troublecox Landing certain he'd thrown off any pursuit.

Kal awaited him on the ferry.

They crossed to Zimtur Isle and took a short, uphill cab ride to their bungalow. They remained outside the little house for several minutes, watching for signs of unwelcome interest.

The street remained clear. Thront gave a non-committal shrug and they entered the house.

After closing all the shutters and latching the front door, they set up in the oval-shaped drawing room. Kal activated a wallglow, and placed the memory egg on the table between them.

Thront leaned over and studied it for a long and silent space.

"My fingers are too large," he said.

Kal sat down and picked up the egg. "Tell me what to do."

Thront spoke directions in a quick, low voice. Kal's fingers moved over the surface of the artifact, applied pressure in a complicated way.

The screen of light came to life in the air between them.

"That's a map." Kal pointed at the dominant image he had earlier mistaken for abstract art. Pictures flashed along the square border: a huge dome of translucent red crystal, pyramids of glowing coins, objects of art...

"One moment." Thront dashed into the library; he returned with an atlas. He fluttered the pages. "That's the same coast- almost." He held up a map and pointed to a spot on its surface. "That's Xiang-Xiang, and here, that's the Sea of Mist" He shoved his finger into the screen of light.

Kal was infatuated with the sidebar images. "It's a treasure map."

"Don't be stupid."

"What is it then?" Kal said. "Certainly not 'strange budding'."

Thront looked at it the image; golden light glowed on his chitin. "An advertisement for a museum, perhaps from the Nhadite period..."

"If it is a museum from the Nhadite period, that works out to be a treasure map." Kal leaned closer to the glowing plain. "How far you figure that is?"

"Aboard The Siren? Three days, maybe four, but I cannot be certain; the waters are rough during the time of five moons, and during the concordance that follows, and, for a fact, the true dimensions of The Sea of Mist are unknown." He paused and ticked off figures on his wide fingers. "Even so, fuel costs for a short voyage would clean out the treasury, and I need to make some repairs. Sursha will be here in a couple more days. She can decide."

"I agree- er I mean, she should most certainly be consulted." Kal stood up and stalked around the room. "She doesn't need to know about our involvement with this fellow Wister, though, and we'd better hide this thing, just in case." He tossed the memory egg to Thront.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

NEXT WEEK: All the nhur you can drink and dreamfruit you can eat as the Five Moons rise.

 

Beyond the Leaning City Part One

This is a Science Fantasy novella; it is complete and I will post it in parts over the next couple of months. I will forego my normal apology regarding quality and let those of you drunk enough to bother form your own opinions. Also, I will make a complete copy available once the entire thing is up. To head off confusion, I will be selling it, but, of course, you can read it here for free- for now. I have reopened comments so as you can get your troll on, or whatever, I'm into it. Note- the copy editing is far superior to what I normally post.

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Beyond The Leaning City

By

Michael Gibbons

 

 

I

Droon Comes Ashore

Vissel Droon, bearer of four sores, both holy and pristine, sailed for twenty days over seas calm and rough, clear and misted, in an open boat carved from a single tooth of the great Icyarch.

Droon came ashore in a crescent shaped bay lined with spires of amber stone and floored with a bed of whispering, green sand. He left the holy sloop to wallow in the jubilant froth of the four-moon tide, and proceeded inland, plunging deep into the purple vastness of Mordann Wood.

Not without purpose, Droon wandered the woodland for twenty days more, slowly making his way towards Xiang-Xiang, the leaning city.

Late the afternoon of the twenty-first day, barely five medspens from the leaning city, Droon, at last, found the object of his quest

 

#

Ignoring both instinct and experience, Kal eased across the wide clearing. Further away from the city, in the forest deep, he might well have exercised more caution, and skirted the edge of the open space, but so close now to his goal, he cared only for speed.

Sursha, and the rapture of their coming reunion occupied the whole of his thoughts. Once he reached the city, he would need to find the proper reunion gift; his hands clenched in agitation at the thought of the expense, but without a gift, there would be no reunion, or, at least, not one at which he would care to be in attendance.

Fording through the tall, azure grass, the late afternoon sun kissing his golden skin, Kal considered the possibilities. Xiang-Xiang's marketplace was a wondrous place, offering a vast assortment of precious items and minor treasures to the discerning buyer; and with the approach of the Five-moon festival it would only be more so-

A thrill ran along Kal's spine, and down the length of his tail.

Too quiet...being watched.

Without slowing his pace, he surreptitiously canted his head, gazing sidelong at the southern edge of the clearing.

Over there...

Behind him, to the north, something huge exploded out of the bush. The noise and unexpected direction of the disturbance gave Kal a terrible start; he leapt straight up into the air, making a girlish noise of fright.

He came down, tail stiff and hair spiking away from his head in every direction. Turning towards the charging beast- a giant, purple sslaur- he let loose a second yelp of fright, and, without further hesitation, fled to the trees at the southern edge of the clearing, the beast fast on his heels.

Kal leapt for, and caught, a low branch; moving hand to hand to tail, he shot up into the trees. As he vanished into the bush, the giant sslaur trumpeted its hunger and frustration. Kal increased his pace.

Winded, and well away from the clearing and the danger, Kal paused on a branch, high above the forest floor, and breathed. Relieved, he laughed; but, as his heart slowed and the sweat of his exertion dried upon his skin, relief fast turned- as he thought of the squealing noise of fright he'd made- to humiliation, and then, more quickly still, to ire.

After a brief moment's angry consideration he turned back towards the clearing.

Once he reached the place, Kal looked out from the cover of the forest. The sslaur milled around the center of the meadow, blunt head rooting dejectedly through the long grass, sunlight glinting along the magenta scales of its dorsal ridge.

Kal reached into his side-pouch and drew forth a black, rubber glove. At his belt he wore a boxy little static caster; he unlimbered the weapon's crank and turned it three times; a high-pitched whine accompanied the action.

The sslaur raised its head at the noise, baring huge yellow teeth.

Kal stepped out from beneath the trees.

"Over here, you great stupid, smelly-"

The sslaur charged. The turf shook and the grass trembled. Drool streamed out behind the beast in long, viscous strings.

When the beast drew so close that Kal could make out the individual scales on its blunt ended snout, he raised his black-gloved hand. He held the 'caster's contact tine, which connected to the crank box via a long and silver cable. Waiting a heartbeat further, he flipped the release toggle.

Lightning seared the air.

#

Looking down at the clearing, Vissel Droon watched as the small, gold skinned creature walked away from the sslaur's smoking corpse.

The little one's initial flight had been nothing if not adept, but its return and subsequent reengagement of the giant predator could only be categorized as foolish. Very foolish.

Smiling, Droon withdrew the gleaming ovoid of the Lurr from his pouch. Looking into its shining surface, he said, seemingly to no one, "I have found what I have sought. Soon will commence the first sacrifice."

Rolling the Lurr in his open palm, Droon scanned the surrounding vegetation, sniffed the air, and tasted the coalescing moss-mist.

He detected nothing.

Certain he was alone and unthreatened, he lowered himself and sat bunch-limbed on the sod; chanting and rocking, he made the final preparations: sharpened all four of his sacred knives; brushed his head with the blessed membrane of permiance; and dropped the silver oval of the Lurr into the center of his quivering brain.

After giving final thanks to the Icyarch for the honor he was about to receive, Vissel Droon lifted himself from the ground and set out.

II

First Sacrifice

 

-Being watched again.

Kal looked behind him. Seeing nothing beyond the packed market, he shook off the feeling and returned his attention to the jeweler and his wares.

"How much for this one?" Kal said, shouting to make himself heard. The sky of the approaching evening would hold only four moons, but already revelers packed every street in narrow laned Xiang-Xiang. Their presence overwhelmed his senses; body stink and crowd noise both hovered over the street, held tight and close, by slouching walls and leaning, garland draped archways.

The afternoon was on the wane; Kal had entered the city less than an hour before. Exhausted, he wished only to make his way home, but dared not without a reunion gift for Sursha...

The jewelry seller, a purple scaled, crag faced, swollen lipped cephalopod, looked at him, slit-eyed, and then at the pendant. He seemed to sense Kal's desperation.

"For you- Twenty Zorms."

"Twenty, I'll give you-hey-" Kal was jostled from behind by the pulsing crowd. "Ten," he said, fighting the press. He flashed all his fingers twice, and then held up the additional two.

The dealer released a short and wet chortling sound.

Kal tossed the pendant onto the counter; he had something fresh and full of stinging wit to say; something that would scathe the shopkeeper, perhaps enough to garner a lower price. Smirking, his tail held in an attitude of patronizing, comic irreverence, he said "My good-"

Hands grasped at his shoulders and waist; there followed a flurry of motion. Hauled away from the jeweler’s booth and out onto the Boulevard of One Thousand Flowers, Kal thrashed and struggled.

Steel flashed.

After a frantic, kicking, and writhing instant Kal broke free and rolled away from his assailant. Beings scrambled, scuttled, crawled, and hopped away from him.

Still off balance, Kal tumbled into the jewelry stall, knocking it over. He pushed away from the wreckage. Ringed by a shocked and silent crowd, he stood alone in the center of the street.

-what?

Something howled. Above. Kal looked up.

The creature balanced on the rail of a second story walkpath was, discounting the length of its lashing tail, twice Kal's size. Sticky fluid seeped over clacking mandibles set beneath a huge and shimmering, transparent skull. Four ugly welts stood out on the thing's naked and slime slick chest. Knives gleamed in four hands. Two venous and corded legs bunched to jump.

The crowd dispersed in a panicked rush.

The creature pounced. Kal jumped away. Knife points scraped and sparked, stone chips sliced the air. Kal dodged a second, slashing assault, rolled under a merchant's cart, and scrambling away from the street, thrust a questing hand into his belt pouch.

The creature wheeled and stamped around the plaza, tail snapping the air and lashing the stones. It slashed out at the frightened remnants of the crowd with its curved knives. Sticky, glistening fluid coursed from its mouthparts and pooled on the street. Terrified, shoppers and costermongers stampeded, smashing stalls and carts, and one another, in a frenzied effort to escape. Coins and goods rolled, bounced and smashed into the street.

Kal found the glove, pulled it on and rolled out from under the cart.

The creature whipped around to face him; its shimmering head jiggled like a disease-swollen teat. It screamed; ropy drool spooled out its mouth.

Kal spun the caster's crank with his bare hand, uncoiling the cable with black wrapped fingers.

The jellyhead hurled its knives aside and leapt, arms outstretched, talons scintillating in the dusty light of late afternoon.

Kal extended his arm out from his body, aimed the two tined contact, turned his eyes away, and flipped the activation toggle.

A bolt of white light leapt from the contact points and scorched the air; transfixed, the jellyhead jerked and twitched; blue fire raged beneath its skin; joints popped, bones ruptured; the creature tumbled to the ground; its transparent head exploded, transformed into a dazzling gout of smoking mucus.

The bolt flickered out.

Steaming-wet, silver and egg-shaped, something rolled to a stop at Kal's feet. Without hesitation he scooped up the thing and dropped it into his side-pouch.

The remnants of the crowd stood still and quiet, staring, attempting to understand.

Several shop awnings had been set alight by the discharge of the static caster. For many seconds the only noise on the street was the crackle of-

"Fire!"

The crowd came awake, screaming, far louder than before.

Smoke was thick on the street. Beings of every sort dashed about, locked onto courses of frenzied panic. The chime of the city's fire-gong cut across the noise of their frenzy.

"Who's going to fix? To pay?" The jewelry dealer stood amongst the ruins of his booth.

He looked at Kal and took a step forward.

Kal noted a sufficiently theatrical swirl of smoke, stepped into it, and disappeared.

He paused on a rooftop a few blocks away, and examined the silver artifact. It was covered with glyphs and inlaid with round jewels. Whatever else it might be, it would make the perfect reunion gift for Sursha, and at no cost beyond an inconsequential, little scuffle. For what more could one ask?

He dropped the object back into his pouch; and after watching, distracted, as several fire brigades hurried past on the avenue below, made his way down to Troublecox Landing, where he boarded the late-day ferry for Zimtur Isle. During the crossing, he idly watched the smoke from the market fire as it puffed and wandered into the darkening sky.