Monday Morning Confession and a map.

I really hate Gandalf. Really. like I wish he was real so I could kick his ass, eat his lembas, smoke all his weed and vandalize his car. Fuck you, Gandalf, you are a punk, do not park your shit mobile in front of my house, and no, I will not pick you up 'a little something' at the 'clinic' bitch.

Please share your own secrets in the comments- if you dare.

Here's your map. The site is located in (check it out I'm going to link myself multiple times, and I am not even using lubricant) the Hidden Forest which is part of the Caverns of Empire. The shrine, or at least the idea behind it, is based on Chavin, but with a stronger technological flavor. The narrow hatched rectilinear features (see the chapel walls) are flat screen displays. Also the place is very old, and the enchantment that holds it together is fading. The result is that the entire thing is on the verge of collapse. Also, worrying is the fact that the Monotaur will not enter the shrine. Perhaps it is the structural instability that keeps it away; perhaps it is something else.

This and all the realted stuff are all part of the framework/ setting for my new (in progress) novel, Underland. I'm currently working on the secomd chapter. Fiction writing is for fucking tools, btw.

 

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 3

This one is longish and full of violence, drug use and maybe a laff or two.

Note- I deleted my G+ account because it is getting more and more like the forums every day and, you know, fuck that. Feel free to mail me if'n you want to talk, or say whatever (and I do mean whatever) in the comments of any post.

 

IV

Rise of the Fifth Moon

 

Kal selected a forest-green tunic and soft tan leggings; Unable to tolerate formal shoes, he passed over the soft, shiny toe-slippers and wore his scuffed trail boots instead. He found a flashy and wide bladed falchion at the rear of his armoire; the weapon was dull and poorly balanced, but it looked splendid, and with the sheath of supple, black hide and the matching sash of glossy charcoal, it seemed perfect for festival.

Thront wore a simple gray robe and a black ocular hood. He came down into the front hall and took a long look at Kal, who was posing before the glass with the falchion.

"You're looking rather warlike," he said.

"Its just for show." Kal tumbled across the carpet and slashed at the air with the falchion.

"Were going to the Festival of Five Moons, not the Rape of the Horn Coast."

Kal frowned. He sighed and dropped the falchion onto his dressing table.

They stashed the memory egg and Kal's static caster in a secret encystment under the courtyard floor and left the house.

An entire bottle of nhurr was taken from the world on their walk down to the ferry.

The ride across was pleasant enough. Revelers packed the decks, singing and laughing. Unexpectedly preoccupied with thoughts of Sursha, Kal remained silent; Thront planned the coming evening,

After they debarked, they joined the boisterous throng flowing along the quay, pausing only to acquire a fresh cask of nhurr at a stall near the mouth of the Boulevard of Happy Coincidence; Thront drove through the tap and secured the cask to his shoulder with a broad leather strap. So equipped the pair walked through the jammed streets, drinking, singing and laughing.

Vendors occupied every available space, and many unavailable ones as well; musicians played in the street; wealthy nort families, borne about en mass on palanquins, watched the jocular activity around them with aloof distance, veiled and tapered snouts bobbing above long-sectioned bodies.

Moving away from the pier and into the central, more constricted part of the city, Kal and Thront went from stall to stall, drinking retz, nhurr and Xurian fire brandy. Kal sampled several narcotics, and purchased a bunch of dreamfruit; he munched on one as the fifth moon glowed below the horizon.

Thront was nearby, they were on a terrace above the Thread, an especially narrow street in one of the leaning city's less reputable neighborhoods.

One bite, two.... Kal smacked his lips; they came together like two fat snakes.

Juice ran down his chin.

His mouth burned numb; below, above, the streetglows swayed.

He smiled, and reeled across the cafe to where Thront was engaged in an arm wrestling match with a large albino sauttyle. Kal paused, considered the match and contemplated the assailants; he leaned close and expelled a painfully loud wail of festive joy.

Someone splashed a drink in his face. Someone else shoved him. Kal laughed and stagger-danced away to the edge of the terrace. Below on the street, several figures hunched under the frame of a great paper Ux; they danced and shook the costume; its shredded wings trembled and swayed; nort in shaman's garb danced on the rooftops and in the streets; pipes trilled and drums rumbled; dark petals of the flower called 'Autumn Sadness' fell over the street like snow. Kal was caught in a swirling, and spiral blizzard of musical sky flecks.

Hooting, he scrambled up the steeply canted, ivy covered side of a wooden house; his feet hung out in space beneath him, pointing at the ground.

Nails pulled, wood creaked. Kal made the roof; below, Thront sang out in triumph- he'd won the arm wrestling match; above, the fifth moon was clearing the jagged western horizon and all five satellites occupied the sky simultaneously for the first time in five hundred years; fireworks: flares of crimson and blue and green and magenta and white traced across the night, exploding simultaneously- a thunderous announcement; The Festival of Five Moons commenced.

A tremendous cry went up; countless guns fired into the air; glass broke, young beings screamed, or laughed; people fell into the canal. Confused by the great clamor, leatherwings and vibrils blasted through the air above the city's alleys and narrow streets, frantic in the search for open sky.

Kal howled at the moons; flyers expelled shot up from the street below, the rustling, cooing flight surrounded him, and for a moment he felt that he flew with them, and then they were gone.

He was left with only the sky.

 

V

Death on the Street of Faces

 

Well after midnight, tired of the press of crowds, Kal and Thront took themselves, a fresh cask of nhurr, several plugs of drogo, some fruit, and a loaf of black bread to a concealed ledge along the Street of Faces.

"See the way that dancer was looking at me?" Kal said, he spoke of a rungian girl they'd seen perform in a cafe earlier.

"No." Thront manhandled the jug out of his companions grasp.

"She was." Kal got up and walked the edge of the scaffold heal to toe. "Looking right at me. Me. As in not at you."

Long practice allowed Thront to ignore Kal with ease; instead, he examined the near most sarcophagus. A rock fragment carved in accordance to the forms of the Delvoniat Hierarchy of Balance rested on the adjacent klutr shelf. An expensive piece, especially for a corpse, how could a dead being experience the true joy of such an item? Thront suppressed the desire to steal the sculpture, and looked below.

It was bad luck to fraternize with the dead during times of joy, therefore, The Street of Faces was closed by mandate of the Arch Beurophant during festival, but Thront could see a number other trespassers along the length of the tomb way. In fact, one group of several figures moved up the street with surprising boldness.

Thront turned to his companion. Kal was about to eat another dreamfruit. "Don't you think you've had enough of those?"

Kal made a rude motion with his tail, and bit into the fruit. His world constricted. Black shapes moved across the moon, and a flash of yellow. He took another bite. The shapes solidified; burning cold, fruit sap dribbled down his chin.

"This shouldn't be too difficult," said an unfamiliar voice.

"Keep your distance," Thront said. Kal watched the moons dance; he thought about leaping into space, but he had the vague notion that there was social activity transpiring around him. He tried to focus.

...

Yellowface talking.

"Just pass it over and we'll leave you be," Yellowface said.

Kal stepped back from the roof's edge and faced towards the interior. Several shapes crowded in a crescent around Thront and himself.

Meafles. Lots of them, too: maybe ten? Dressed in black toopas and carrying blaze-poles of gleaming, amber metal. Kal stumbled back a step, almost to the edge. Someone was retching among the tombs in the street directly below.

"-" Thront opened and closed his mouth.

What was this 'it' that they were after? Kal wondered. His vision wavered and liquefied around the edges. The time had come to get tough, and let these fellows know exactly where they stood.

"Forget it. Move along before you receive the beating of your life," Kal said.

Someone laughed. Kal thought of the fruit in his pouch. He thought of the shapes clouds make on blustery spring days, how sometimes if you look really hard you could see a face, or a bar of soap, or a vhane's head, or some other shape, or something...

One of the meafles took a step forward; his blaze-pole activated and he pointed the flickering, buzzing head at Kal's chest.

"Shut-" He flinched. Kal ducked under the pole tip, and tumbled forward; he rolled onto his hands, placed a precise toe-kick into the soft fur of the meafles throat, and followed up with a less elegant, but more forceful kick to the gut.

The meafle folded up into a gasping heap.

A bellow shook the rooftop- Thront charged, plowing into four of the meafles and sweeping them off the roof. Unfortunately, his shoulder-mounted cask was still quite full, and the sloshing weight of it pulled him over as well. Five shapes hurtled towards the pavement.

Kal found himself alone on the rooftop with six, possibly seven, but maybe four assailants, one of who was almost certainly unconscious, perhaps. He looked down; he was holding a blaze-pole in his grasp. Someone made an angry noise and reached for him; Kal jumped high and to his rear, performed a full aerial inversion, and fell head first towards the tiny ribbon of white marble below.

He thrust butt of the blaze pole at a klutr shelf, and used the force from the impact to vault onto the scaffolding on the other side of the street, one level down.

Upon landing, Kal deactivated the weapon and crouched in the darkness for an instant. His head swam. He remembered something about a fruit. He heard a commotion below. Thront was down there.

-But according to the marks on its stone lid the sarcophagus beside him had been interred during the Second Thidart Theocracy; Kal owned a vase from the same period; the nort of that time had been extremely competent artificers. The disturbance in the street beneath him continued. In fact, it seemed to be escalating; Kal leaned over the edge of the scaffold to see what it was all about; to his surprise he saw Thront in the street. He seemed to be involved in a row. With a bemused shake of the head Kal returned to his thoughts.

The most interesting thing about the Second Thidart Period was not the carving, however-

Meafles: a lot of them too; he counted ten. Why in the world was Thront beating them so?

- As stated, the primary feature of said era, from an archeological viewpoint that is, was the emergence of the nortish wind-harvesting technology. Somehow, between all the pogroms and inquisitions, the Thidartists had managed to build an awful lot of windmills- the noise from below was dreadful. Kal had tolerated it as long as could be expected, longer even; he found it impossible to think under such conditions or even to keep facts clear, much less extrapolate and draw conclusions.

Kal sprang from the scaffold and plummeted to the street below; he landed with a rolling somersault and came up behind the meafles.

Cornered, Thront held a stone bench over his head; his eye was narrow and mean, a trickle of blood ran down the exterior of his ocular node, but otherwise, he appeared to be uninjured.

The street itself, at least in Thront's immediate vicinity, was a shambles; several of the caskets were torn out of their moorings- former occupants, mummified and unconcerned, relaxed in the gutter; nhurr dribbled down the walls, and pooled on the uneven cobbles; fragments of the broken keg were everywhere; three dead meafles stretched across the pavement.

Thront raised the stone bench high. A red flush colored his chitin; he bellowed and rushed forward.

Meafles flinched and dodged, several stepped backward towards Kal, who activated his blaze-pole and charged; purple energy hissed as it passed through the air.

Kal became distracted at the last instant, and his first strike went completely wide; the buzzing head of the blaze-pole impacted full on with an ebony sarcophagus, smashing the chiseled snout at its base. A terrible noise- like a cross between the emasculation lament of a north plain forest zpracht, and the surfacing warble of ten thousands rack-faced thurms- filled the street. Sparks jumped; razor sharp crystalline shards skipped across the air; huge, stone nostrils were knocked asunder; separate, but largely intact, they skittered and hard-bounced across the marble.

The tumultuous spectacle afforded Thront a chance to brain two more of his assailants. Another fell, knocked senseless by a fast moving, fist-sized tomb fragment.

Kal charged on. Four meafles remained standing. He somersaulted over them, howled and struck down with the blaze-pole.

He came to ground behind them, and launched into a bizarre, taunting, manic dance. Drool trailed from his mouth, and his hair stood out at strange, unsettling angles; his tail lashed in a jerking, crazy fashion. He waved the blaze-pole around over his head, creating glowing magenta loops of crackling energy while beating his chest with one fist; he thrust his pelvis at the meafles, blew his nose in their direction, growled like feral vermin, and gave voice to a lot of screaming, incoherent, drunken, drug induced nonsense.

Next, he exploded up into the air, bouncing from scaffold to scaffold. Whirling and twisting in an impossibly complex pattern, he struck at the crystal lanterns that hung above the boulevard.

He smashed each and every one of the lamps and, upon the shattering of the last, dropped to the street like a thrown harpoon; his garments rustled and snapped in the wind of his passage; unraveled, his sash trailed behind him, like a second tail. He came down amidst a hail of fire and the harsh chime of breaking glass; taking the impact on his left knee, he rang the butt of the blaze pole against the cobbles.

His face smeared with blood and ashes, he crouched motionless under the eyes of the dead; burning debris rained down around him.

Of the surviving meafles, only the fading sounds of their flight remained.

Thront dropped the bench and leaned against a wall. He was breathing heavy; he looked down at his companion, who remained motionless.

An alarm gong sounded. And again.

"We'd better go," Thront said.

"Sure." Kal stood. "Who were they, and why were they so mad?"

"We never really got that far," Thront said. He started back up the scaffolding, dragging Kal along behind him.

Dawn's light was on the waves by the time they got to the ferry. Kal went through his pockets en route, and was surprised to find that he still possessed a dreamfruit.

Thront snatched it away and hurled it over the side.

[Map] The Bottom of The Black Smoke Sea, Inception

The Black Smoke Sea is the name given the enormous and relatively stationary volume of smoke and toxic gas that fills a large depression in the southwest region of the Deep Desert. The floor of the depression is a hellish place, hot, forever dark and choked with noxious clouds of poison. Strange life forms thrive there; aliens, machines, insects and fanatical nomads compete for the stingy resources afforded by the fouled wasteland. Savage predators stalk weird prey in smoke shrouded stone forests. Silverfish cluster and swarm, rushing across the broken earth in their clacking, rustling millions.

Gas masks, survival suits tanks, acid rain, e-rations, thirst, bugs, lava, smoke, sludge, air locks, trundles, blood lung, gas ghosts, slavers, domes, psionics, vulcanism, skin burn, contamination.

Sadly, I have done nothing new with elves here.

 

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.

 

Caverns of Empire, The Hidden Forest

Abstract: Ancient place, haunted by a tragic history. Quiet, but not silent. Peaceful, but not safe. Abandoned, but not empty.

 

Once a part of the main cavern network, the cave containing the Hidden Forest was sealed away from the other nearby areas in Kingdom times, and has since transcended concealment and become completely forgotten, or at least mostly so. A few explorers, escaped slaves, and slave chasers have stumbled into it over the years, but few survive and fewer still deign to talk of what they have seen.

Ape Burrows: these noisome caves are the residence of a band of white cave apes. Travelers will smell the place long before they see it.

Alabaster Landing: the Titan River touches the cave here, once there was a sort of temple in the place, but all that remains now is the odd pillar of mottled and dirty grey marble, and a flight of discordantly gleaming steps made of a stone so white that it seems to give off its own light. Curious ruinic inscriptions mark the steps.

Bonefloor: the floor of the entire Hidden Forest is covered in bones, remnants of an ancient battle. Over time, most of these bones have been covered with moss, fungus or some other living agent. In the rare places where this is not the case, a hard translucent mineral layer covers the bones.

Cave-in: area of the ante chamber comprosed of cave fall. The terrain is broken and jumbled here; it eventually becomes impassable as roof meets floor in a mad chaos of broken stone.

Camp: This is where Professor Goris (Troglodyte) has set up his residence while he works up the courage to explore the rest of the cave. He makes a good impression, but he was once described by an Endless as "that dimestore Rasputin." Although the meaning of the insult was lost on him, Goris has never gone a day since without pondering its significance. Usually, he decides that it was a complement.

Broken Bridge: A tumble down Kingdom structure; on either side of the river, the near twin remants of the bridge, each termainating in a blackened, shattered spur of sorcery twisted stone, extend less than a chain from the bank. Careful examination reveals the bridges destruction as a product of intent.

Mud Pools: Boiling mud comes to the surface in many places throughout the cave, but is most common in the regions at the cavern's northern extreme, near the Forgotten Road exit.

The Pit: Defunct surge hole, closed epochs ago.

Ruined Tower: A remant of the Kingdom's great anti-surge fortification.

The Sentinel: A huge reptillian beast of unknown kind stands guard over the Pit. Its eyes are vast dark pools in which it is said one can see one's own death. The mere sight of the creature summons up a feeling that surpasses both fear and grief at their respective extremes. Only the hardiest can remain in its proximity and any foolish enough to stay long, no matter their intial strength, succumb to madness.

A giant minotaur resides in the cave. He is a merceless hunter, never yeilding prey once he has made contact. He favors eating live game, and often carries about a still twitching victim while walking about in the bush. A noise like that of a thousand grinding and clanking machines emanates from the creatures as does an unbearable chemical stink.

 

Here are some bad pics of the master map, which is too large to scan.

 

Tomorrow, Beyond the Leaning City, Pt. 2

 

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.