~This story uses the same characters of Mana: The
Rising but instead put into the story of a world that has had its past altered
and is spiraling towards destruction to meet the mysterious ends of the Fel
Knight Abraxus. Aiding the hero, Balder, is the equally mysterious Daryim, an
impossibly powerful mage who is wrapped and shrouded to hide that his body is
little more than a charred husk. Uncovering an ancient portal device known as
an Avengerius Lock (after the Demigod of History Avengerius) Balder attempts to
amend the timeline and stop a cataclysmic awakening that is the result of his
own actions~
- - - - -
Act 1- Concerning The
Shadow In The Land Of The Mountain
The flagstones were
slick with blood, it was pooled all along the palace walls from the bodies that
lay broken and spent, the last remnant of the Royal Guard and their failed last
stand on the ramparts, consigned to history now as little more than a footnote.
A man landed heavily
on his back with a gasp as the wind was knocked from his body, blood gushed
forth from the slashes across his chest, arms and legs, his face was swollen
and cut and it stung from dirt in the wounds. He rolled in agony onto his chest
and using his one good arm dragged himself weakly towards the parapets, there
was the sound of something heavy landing on the ground behind him but he did
not turn to see.
The sky was black as
obsidian and lit only by the occasional burst of lightning, the air stank of
burning pitch and worse, acrid black smoke filled the air and burned at the
lungs. It felt in every way like the Gods had forsaken the city and its people,
that they had decreed that they would once and for all be wiped from the face
of the world. The palace shook beneath him, the sign that another projectile
had struck home, those horrid steel arrows that shot fire and drove themselves
further than they should by right, some new and terrible magic that had been
brought to bear against them. The assault was unrelenting even now when the
enemy’s own forces were well within the city, the streets were overrun and he
could hear the screams of the populace below.
He reached the
parapet wall but could not summon the strength to pull himself up, he was done,
drained, what little remained of his life was slipping fast from him, he could
feel it fading inexplicably from his broken body. There was nothing more he
could do, he lay panting against the short wall with the rough stone against
his face and awaited the blissful release.
There was the sound
of another heavy thud, this one much closer than the last. Turning his head he
saw an armoured boot black as a midnight in hell, small spikes protruded
upwards as toes of burnished steel and tiny rivers of blood flowed across its
surface.
A hand grasped the
back of his collar and he was pulled bodily upwards to see over the parapet
wall, the city was ablaze under the black of the storm. In the far distance he
could see the flaming missiles launched by the relentless siege engines rise
over the walls to come crashing down on peoples’ homes and livelihoods.
“See your future’s
end,” the Fel Knight said, his voice a foul rasp like the hiss of a serpent
mixed with the sound of fingernails scrapping a chalkboard. “I want you to see
this, I want you to bear witness to true power, the dawn of a new age, the
collapse of destiny!”
Through his good eye
the wounded man watched the destruction of the last High Kingdom on Hyldrassil,
the grand city was burning to the ground under the onslaught of the foreign war
machine. The inner concentric circles of walls were overrun with marauders and
brigands, the sea blockade on the delta had been broken and now the invaders
controlled the harbours. This world was coming to an end in a barrage of flame
and thunder.
A blackened iron
gauntlet with fingers sharpened to points grabbed the man by the throat and he
was turned to face the Fel Knight. The warrior was clad in lustreless black
armour inlaid with burnished gold filigree of flame and broken souls, he must
have been at least eight feet tall and easily lifted the man to eye level.
There was nothing in that hollow blackness beneath the helm except two glowing
points of light that flared with a fire fuelled by some deep inner rage or
torment, black smoke rose out of those burning points with the stink of charred
flesh. They narrowed as if in a frown or sneer.
“I know whom you
serve, Abraxus,” the dying man croaked, his eyes going bloodshot in the
knight’s iron grip, “I promise that victory will be denied to you.”
The spiked pauldrons
on the knight’s shoulders shuddered as he hissed a foul laughter, “My imminent
victory will be the last thing that you ever see, your highness, and you will
find yourself rushing unstoppably towards it.”
And with barely a
perception of effort the black clad knight threw the dying man over the parapet
to the sound of his own diseased laughter.
He did indeed see his
fate rushing towards him, thirty stories from the palace spire to the courtyard
below had become quite an unavoidable destiny, with his strength drained he
prayed, as the cobblestones approached he closed his eyes-
-Balder screamed and
sat bolt upright, his skin was slick with sweat and his bed sheets stuck to
him. It was a nightmare, just a nightmare. A bloody nightmare at his age!
It was still dark
outside and the crickets were singing their nocturnal chorus, which sounded odd
against the eternal haunting song of the Twin Gods that forever echoed
throughout the land from the two lava spires known as the Towers of the Twin
Gods.
Pyrrha was a
relatively young land, up until two millennia ago there had been nothing but
ocean here but then some far off cataclysm shook the world of Hyldrassil to its
very core and the volcano of Pyrrha became a planetary pressure valve. The
eruption changed the face of the world forever, lands were devastated as the
seas rose and entire kingdoms were wiped out, whole cities vanished under the
waves whilst others fell to disease and ruin as their governments struggled to
adapt. But with all things a certain degree of inertia set in and some
normality gradually came back into the world, new kingdoms arose, new
governments were founded and in that time the nation of Pyrrha arose, the
merchant kingdom within the flooded crater of the volcano.
Balder groaned and
rubbed his eyes, he had to get up at dawn to help with the harvest on the
northern fields. It was that time of the year again and the big orders from the
city for Vinalia Flour were already in and Mister Butcher, the miller, had
enlisted the services of most of the young men in the village. The money wasn’t
great but it meant a day in the sun with your friends who you never got to see
enough of these days and Mister Butcher always rewarded his farmhands with the
first round in the tavern that evening.
A long day’s work
ahead of him and he was dreaming about demons and burning cities, he blamed the
glass of milk that he’d had before bed, it must have been going off.
Cursing the
circumstance Balder threw his legs out of bed and felt the cold wooden floor
beneath his feet, slowly he stood and in that zombie-like half-awake state he
shuffled into the kitchen and lifted a mug down from a high shelf. He drifted
with a grunt to the frostbox and opening the door he was hit by a blast of cold
air, he was definitely awake now. The back of his mind made a small mental note
that the air wasn’t as cold as it should have been and that he’d have to take
the thaumatite in to the town mage in a day or two in order to have it
recharged.
He lifted out a jug
of fresh water from the spring and shuffled back to where he had left the mug,
as he powered the water he stared out the window into the world beyond. It was
a crystal clear night with both moons hanging high over the rim wall, the trees
and grass swayed gently in the convection currents flowing up the rim, they
moved in a slow dance of sparkling silver in the moonlight. Far off he faintly
heard the screech of a flight of the rather unfortunately named Predator Bat,
quite possibly the most vegetarian species on the planet, it was only a
predator if you happened to be a blackberry.
Balder sipped at the
water and shuffled his way back towards his bedroom, passing the kitchen table
he spotted a note addressed to himself, he lifted the folded paper and angled
it towards the silvery moonlight coming through the window.
It had been written
in the fluid, if somewhat archaic language that was commonly been used by his
father as an educational tool, it read:
Balder,
I have been called away to a Council meeting. I may be gone for some days. I
know that I can rely on you to look after things in my absence. I have left
some extra cash in the usual place since you won’t get much work from me and
Fred just doesn’t pay enough for the harvest. See you in a few days, Dad.
Balder sighed, a few
days? ‘Council meeting’ implied that his father was on his way down the rim
wall to Prosperina, that was a week of travel in itself and then nearly two
weeks back up again, a few days…
On the bright side
there were a few things that Balder had been meaning to catch up on but had
until now found himself in a deficit of free time, that put him in a better
mood.
He might even be able
to fit in an afternoon or two of Current Jumping, an extreme sport played high
on the rim wall whereby the jumper leaps from an appropriate ledge with a large
sail strapped to his back. The object is to stay within the convection currents
that washed up the inner rim wall from the lake far below in the crater, the
winner of the game is whoever can land the highest from where they started.
There is a danger of going too high and getting blown over the rim. From there
it is a long fall to the ocean below, though thanks to the sail isn’t much of a
risk in itself but there are no pathways back up the mountain and it is a long
walk round to the sea gate.
He smiled as he continued
back towards his bedroom, this week was good to be pretty good, and thinking
those happy thoughts it took him a moment to realise that the ground was
beginning to shake.
“Earthquake!” Balder
yelled to no one in particular as he braced himself against the doorframe. The
ground shook violently and a deep rumble pervaded the very air he breathed as
if the world was trying to cough up a particularly nasty glob of phlegm. The
moonlight vanished as dark clouds washed in and he was left standing in an unnatural
darkness, a red glow rose from cracks that had split across his floor and
chunks of land slowly began to rise.
The broken land
exploded into the air and through the roof in a column of roaring flame and
suddenly everything was normal again, the floor was intact, moonlight shone
through the windows and the ground was still. Balder blinked twice, what in the
heavens just happened?
There was a slight
cough and looking down Balder saw that where the ground had split there now
stood a little naked figure, about six inches tall and with horns on his head.
“Sorry about the
fright,” it said, “people usually expect a bit of flair and drama in the
opening show and I do so hate to disappoint.”
Balder remained
motionless, he was still braced against the doorframe and his knuckles were
going white from the grip, he was starting to feel light-headed and it slowly
dawned on him that he was holding his breath.
“You can speak, can’t
you?” The figure cocked his head, “You aren’t like, slow, or anything, are
you?”
This couldn’t
possibly be happening, Balder was saying to himself, the real world didn’t just
spew forth little naked men in a column of fire, he was still dreaming.
“This is a dream,” he
said at last, and slouching his shoulders he relaxed from the doorframe, “my
nightmare didn’t end, it just changed. Can’t imagine why I’d have little naked
men in my sleep though, where are all the buxom maidens?”
“I’d like some
maidens too, but you aren’t asleep. Right now you are about as awake as you
have ever been,” the little man spoke slowly, as if talking to a child, “now,
do you think that you could maybe pay attention for a moment? And put the
kettle on, I’m thirsty.”
“This is just a
dream,” Balder muttered ignoring the tiny figure, he walked off towards his bed
mumbling about soured milk.
The little horned man
stared in disbelief as Balder climbed into bed and pulled the sheets tight
around him, he lay on his side with his back to the bedroom door and very soon
afterwards he was snoring.
“Once, just once I
would like this bloody job to be easy,” the little man sighted, he strode
towards the kitchen, “I wonder if he’s got any gin?”
* * *
Balder awoke with a
start, sunlight was streaming through his window in a clear indication that the
day had well and truly began, and more importantly it gave a clear indication
that he was well and truly late.
He mumbled to himself
as he splashed the last of his mug of water into his face and started to get
dressed, he was letting Mister Butcher down and that didn’t sit well with him,
especially since he had been helping with the harvest for the past nine years.
It didn’t look good to the new lads when one of the more experienced hands
turned up well after the work had commenced. Bloody nightmares.
His scythe had been
left next to the front door along with a sharpening stone, the original
intention of this was that if everything was sitting ready in the morning he’d
be able to get away early and show the new kids how to properly handle and
maintain a scythe. He cursed again, and grabbing the gear he ran out the door.
As he trotted down
the path he shook off the thought that he had heard someone call ‘Hey’ from his
kitchen, it was probably a bird on the roof or something. This was not a good
start to the day.
Over the tops of the
trees the smoke from the village blacksmith rose gently to the sky, there was
next to no breeze this morning. Balder had gone off the winding path that led
downhill to Vinalia, the fields were on this side of the village and it would
be quicker just to cut through the narrow collar of forest. He jumped the small
stream that ran from the spring next to the ranch and a couple of highland
hares bolted as he landed in a run, the air was cool and invigorating under the
forest canopy and he felt energised.
Ahead a clearing became
visible beyond the shade of the trees, before it there was a hawthorn hedge he
knew and then the golden fields of wheat that they would be working on. And
wasn’t there a sturdy branch hanging over the gap ahead…
Balder leapt just
before the opening and grasping the branch he kicked his legs up and over the
hedge and- fire raining down on a city of stone, skeletons and zombies stalking
the streets and feasting on the flesh of the living, the hordes were closing in
around him, he was trapped against a wall-
-Oh hells! Balder
tumbled on the ground, he felt a pain in his hip as he rolled over the
sharpening stone, he felt the slap on his face of harsh strands of something
and could taste dirt in his mouth.
“Balder,” a young man
stood over him in a cloud of dust, the sun behind him hid his face, “better
late than never, eh? You must be out of shape if you couldn’t handle a simple
swing like that.”
“Ches?”
“No, I’m a ghoul.
I’ve taken this form so I can meet chicks.”
Balder laughed dryly,
he was still a little dazed, “You might want to reconsider your choice of body,
Ches couldn’t get a woman if he had money hanging out of his pants.”
“You’re a funny guy,
you know that,” Ches said as he helped his friend to his feet, “you should go
on tour with your comedy, I bet you’d get crowds numbering in at least the
tens, and they’d all be there to see someone sadder than themselves.”
“Oh, so you’d be
going with me on this tour then?”
“Yeah, whatever,” the
young man reached down and fished Balder’s scythe out of the long wheat stalks,
“so what’s with being late today, I thought that you were looking forward to
this? I mean, the Gods know you need all the beauty sleep you can get, but
still…”
Balder took the
offered scythe and laid it across his shoulder, the pair started over towards
the area already cleared by the young farmhands, they had reaped over half of
this field already.
“I’ve been having
weird dreams lately,” he said as they strolled amongst the golden stalks, “I keep
dreaming that I’m in this big city under siege and this demon knight beats the
crap out of me and throws me off a tower, and I feel like I’m falling for
ages.”
“Well, falling dreams
are normally associated with a feeling of a lack of control in one’s life,”
Ches commented, “or so I’m told. What was the city like?”
“Big,” Balder said
immediately, it was the first word to pop into his head and it was a fairly
accurate description, though from the way things were going it was soon to be a
lot smaller if his dream had run its course. “It was old, there seemed to be
lots of monuments and statues, lots of columns and palisades, that sort of
thing. There were canals laid out in concentric circles with huge walls between
them, and the tower or palace or whatever looked like it was in the centre. Oh
yeah, and it was on fire.”
“Hmm, I think Tyria
is built in concentric circles, and Han Kiroj is supposed to be a series of
concentric rings descending into a pit, and the castle of Tithonus has a
circular wall. What about the demon knight?”
“Black armour,
tarnished chains, lots of spikes and I think that his eyes were on fire, either
that or they were very, very bloodshot.”
“Black, spiky
armour,” Ches tutted, “these villains are always such clichés. Well, I think
that your dream means that you are afraid of black-clad knights throwing you of
towers in burning cities.”
“So I just have to
stay out of burning cities and I’ll be fine.”
“No, you just have to
stay out of towers in burning cities and you’ll be fine,” Ches laughed as they
reached the spot where he had dropped his own scythe. “I’ve been reading about
this new shrink, Phroid, who’s been making a bit of a name for himself in
Midas, he’s got some interesting, if somewhat unorthodox theories. For instance
by his standard getting thrown off the tower into a burning city means that you
are angry with your penis and that you want to sleep with your mother.”
“Well that would make
me pretty messed up,” Balder replied.
Ches knew that, he’d
regretted saying the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Balder’s
mother had died sometime shortly after he was born and his father had moved
them to Pyrrha in order to make a fresh start, Balder hadn’t even been old
enough to remember what she looked like. Dealing with the subject of dead
relatives is always a problematic subject even for the best of friends and he
usually found the best solution to be to gloss over it and ignore any further
reference.
“Not that I have
anything against necrophilia, cracking open a cold one as it were,” Balder
winked, letting his friend off the hook, “but doing it with my mum would be
just a little sick.”
They spent the rest
of the morning working their way down through the field, with the wheat stalks
swaying gently in the mild breeze and the sun beaming down through a cloudless
sky it really was the perfect day for working the fields. A few of the youngest
lads, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old were running behind the more
experienced reapers pulling together the cut stalks and tying them in bundles.
In a year or two these young chaps would be the ones doing the cutting, if they
saved up and bought their own scythes that is, Mister Butcher was of the
opinion that paying them was charity enough without giving away farm equipment.
The late summer harvest
was something of a community tradition in Vinalia, the teenagers and young men
all pitched in for the day and after it all they piled into the inn for an
evening’s reverie. The teenagers did it for the money, the young men did it
because they were now all apprenticing as craftsmen or tradesmen and had come
to appreciate the value of a day in the sun with their friends.
“How’s about we break
for lunch before starting the next field?” Ches let the suggestion hang in the
air for a moment whilst he wiped a rag over his brow, he saw that the other
experienced lads in the next field over had finished up and were sitting down
for a snack, “That sound good?”
There was a cheer
from the other boys, Balder just said ‘bugger’ under his breath, rushing out
the door this morning he’d left his lunch in the frostbox, he’d have to run
back and get it.
“I’ll be back in
fifteen minutes,” he said as he took off up the field.
Ches sat on a bundle
of stalks and pulled a sandwich out of his backpack, “I swear he’d forget his head
if it wasn’t glued on.”
* * *
The kitchen was an
absolute mess, cupboards lay open and bits of food lay strewn across the floor,
the worktops and even the walls in some places, bottles of condiments and
spirits lay empty on the floor. There was also an empty bottle of high strength
liquid plant feed.
“What in the
Underrealm happened here?” Balder looked in disgust as he lifted between his
thumb and forefinger what looked like a half-eaten raw fillet of roebuck.
“So you’re back
then,” came a voice from behind him, “nice day out is it?”
Turning slowly Balder
spotted the small horned man standing by the doorway picking his teeth with
what looked like a splinter from a matchstick.
“Did I pass out along
the road or something?”
The tiny figure
strode over, hopped what looked to be an insurmountable distance for a being
his size onto the table and sat on an empty bottle of Jotunheim Dry Gin.
“I can assure you
that you are fully awake,” the figure crossed his legs, “as you were last
night. You may remember- earthquake, column of flame, your floor and ceiling
destroyed… any of this ring a bell?”
“I thought that was
soured milk.”
“Yeah, so I
gathered,” he stood and bowed slightly, “I am the great and powerful
Multhazzarlandruckullzae’draennodaildontrovandzadaar, Oppressor of the Ninth
Pit and Destroyer of Worlds.”
Balder stared for a
moment, “What are you?”
“I’m a demon, an imp
to be exact, you can call me Multhazzar,” the demon said, “the full name and
title is a cultural thing.”
“You mean that you
have to have a name bigger than yourself,” Balder slowly sat himself down at
the table, this was just too weird, “didn’t anyone ever tell you that size
doesn’t matter? Incidently, did you drink all of my father’s gin?”
“Amongst other
things, yes,” Multhazzar burped, the jar of mustard wasn’t sitting well with
him.
“But you’re only six
inches tall, that bottle’s about ten times your volume.”
“I’m an abstract,”
the demon shrugged, “basically it all boils down to relativity and perception.
And didn’t anyone ever tell you that size doesn’t matter?”
Balder was glad to be
sitting down right now, he was pretty sure that his legs were about ready to
give up with the whole bipedal idea and let his arms carry some of the burden
for a change.
“Right about now you
are probably wondering what I am doing here.”
In actuality Balder
was wondering if he was lying face down in the forest somewhere with a pinecone
in his ear.
“I’ve been sent to
get you out of here.”
“You have been sent
to get me out of here?” The idea seemed fairly preposterous and Balder’s tone
certainly indicated that he thought so, “Why, pray tell? And by whom?”
“By whom would take
too long to explain right now,” the demon said, “the ‘why’ is far more simple,
if I don’t get you out of here and off this damn volcano then you shall find
yourself being swiftly shuffled loose this mortal coil.”
“What?”
The demon sighed,
“Wotan give me strength. If I don’t get you away from Pyrrha… You. Will. Die. I
can’t be any clearer than that. You will have your entrails ripped out through
your throat, you will be drawn and quartered and your head will be stuck on a
pike.”
“You will die would
have been sufficient,” Balder had paled noticably, “why is somebody trying to
kill me?”
“That takes a lot of
explaining, but essentially it’s because somebody is trying to stop history
from happening.” Multhazzar knew that statement was far too cryptic to be
considered a good explanation but right now he really didn’t have time for
anything better, “Do you have a weapon?”
Balder stood slowly
and moved as if in a daze towards the lounge, “I’ve got a sword but I usually
just use it for cutting long grass.”
Balder presented a
rusted and very notched blade.
“Ye Gods, that piece
of crap looks so old that it might have value as a relic. Anything else?”
“I’ve got some knives
in the kitchen, I guess…”
“Bring them, at least
that way you’ll be able to stab any adversaries whilst they’re laughing at your
sword. Quickly go throw a few essentials into a backpack, we need to get going.
I’ve left you enough waybread to last as far as Prosperina and even filled a
couple of water skins out of the goodness of my heart.”
Balder did as
instructed. Somewhere in the back of his mind a thought was fighting for
attention, he was taking the word of a self-confessed demon, but the thought of
keeping his bits inside his body was a far better fighter. After all he had
grown said bits all by himself and over the years he had become quite attached
to them.
A few changes of
underwear, adventurers and heroes seemed to forget about that when they go off
on their legendary quests to liberate captured maidens, steal precious jewels
from evil tyrants and that sort of thing. Gods only knew what they smelled like
by the time that they were seducing said maidens or spending said jewels in the
nearest brothel, how these heroes had any self-esteem was a mystery to Balder.
Of course he wasn’t expecting many brothels but the need for clean linen was
what he considered to be an important part of travelling, that and perhaps
arriving at his destination in one vertical piece.
Destination? Now that
was a fairly important point, where was he going to go? The imp hadn’t spoken
of where he intended to lead Balder, was this some sort of pointlessly
elaborate trap? He knew that there were stories of demons trying to trick men
in order to steal their souls, but this seemed to be a bit too proactive in
nature, wasn’t it traditional that the demon challenges the victim to a contest
of musical prowess?
“Come on,” Multhazzar
called impatiently from the kitchen, “all you really need is food, water and
money. It can’t take you that long to grab whatever worthless junk you think
that you will need.”
Balder sighed and
rolled up a coarse blanket of a dark green colour. The demon was right, there
were many things in this house that he would deem to be items of importance,
and you never know when you might need that 18 piece camping knife, but most of
it would be little more than dead weight. He tied the blanket to his backpack
and reckoned that he now had pretty much everything that he would need. He
quickly pulled on a clean tunic of an unusual purple colour and a teal green
cloak, he strapped the scabbard under the cloak so that the sword was more or
less hidden and finally he hefted the backpack onto his shoulders.
This isn’t exactly
how this week was supposed to go… he realised that he’d best leave a note for
his dad but somehow “Dad, a demon came and told me that I had to leave or I’d
face certain death. Sorry about the mess, he drank your gin.” Seemed a bit
stupid. He settled instead for “Dad, had to go away for a bit, will explain
when I get back. Sorry.” and as he strode into the kitchen with the note he
thought that he could hear the far off sound of horses.
“You almost look
impressive,” the diminutive demon said dryly, “we’d best get a move on.”
The clatter of hooves
became much louder, there were a lot of horses coming up the lane, the imp
vanished in a small puff of smoke and reappeared by the window, he gently slid
aside the curtain and glanced out.
“You might want to go
out the back door,” he said, “and right now.”
Balder stuffed the
waybread and water skins on the table into his satchel and bolted for the door,
he cautiously pulled it open and ran to the stables across the corral, the
forest came to the back of the buildings and he could easily slip away from
there.
As he made his way
under the shade of the trees he saw soldiers in heavy armour take up positions
around the cottage, the sun was high in the sky behind him and the forest
canopy was dense so he knew that he was well hidden here.
The markings on their
armour seemed familiar but he couldn’t place it, an eye over a three-peaked
mountain, black on red with gold filigree.
Quietly he moved on
around the outskirts of the ranch, creeping amongst the tall High Oak trees and
ensuring to stay out of any breaks in the canopy. He took care to avoid the
treacherous dry twigs that always seemed to be lying in wait for the wary
traveller who is trying to evade unwanted attentions only to step on the wrong
patch of ground and have his position given away with a snap like a gunshot.
An enormous black war
horse stood in the centre of a group of lesser steeds, this creature looked
like it could carry it’s rider to the Underrealm and back again. It was then
Balder saw the rider amongst the other soldiers and it occurred to him that the
horse might possibly have done just that.
He was clad all in
black with ornate gold engraving on his spiked armour, three massive spikes
rose from his helm as if in competition with the tarnished spikes on his
pauldrons. A red mist drifted from the deep blackness within the helm.
“I’ve had nightmares
about that guy,” Balder whispered to Multhazzar.
“I’m not surprised,”
the imp replied, “Abraxus is nightmare incarnate.”
The knight called
Abraxus knocked daintily on the door of the cottage and after a few moments
without response he kicked the door in, the wood blowing apart as if it
couldn’t get away from him quickly enough.
His dimensions were
too large in every way for there to be any convenient manner in which he could
enter the building but Balder got the distinct impression that this knight was
the kind of person who would just stare threateningly until he got what he
wanted. The soldiers filed around him and began a search of the building, from
the sound of the smashing within Balder assumed that they had found his
father’s small alchemy lab, either that or they weren’t overly fond of his
father’s collection of collectable plates.
“If I were you, and
believe me I’m glad I’m not, but if I were then right about now I would be
making my way down the side of the rim before they decide to search the
forest,” said Multhazzar from beside Balder’s ear, he was lying across the
backpack. “Just a thought.”
He agreed with the
imp, cautiously he slipped back deeper into the shade and a twig snapped with a
crack like a whip. There was always bloody one.
The knight Abraxus
spun, or at least Balder assumed that he had spun since he was now facing in
his direction, those eyes of flame fixed firmly on the spot in the shade were
he now stood.
He couldn’t possibly
see me Balder was saying in his mind.
“Run you idiot!” The
Demon smacked him over the back of the head.
Balder ran, he ran
hard. Branches slapped him in the face and whipped at him as he charged through
the trees, not far behind the call of the soldiers could be heard and the
whiney of horses, he’d never lose them on foot even in this dense grove. The
only thing that he really had going for him was that the tree roots here all
grew long and deep, there was nothing in the underbrush that could trip him up
as he fled for his life.
The stream was up
ahead then it was a brief sprint to the fields, and then what? He couldn’t
expect the lads to get involved, most of them were just boys and those behind
him were soldiers, professional thugs, the lads would be slaughtered. So what
options did that leave him with? The Livery in Vinalia, he could commandeer a
horse for a while, one of the express mail horses or something. Well, that
wasn’t quite a plan but it was better than running until he coughed up his lungs.
He jumped the stream
and as he landed there was the sound of cloth tearing as his cloak got caught
on a thicket of briars, it seemed that the accursed things were growing
everywhere these days. Cursing as he pulled himself loose Balder took a quick
breath and started running again. He’d ended up back on the very trail that
he’d ran down only this very morning, and there ahead of him was the gap with
the sturdy branch, he’d better not make a mess of it this time.
His legs swung up and
over the hawthorn, he kicked out and glided in slow motion through the air, the
ground was get closer… he landed on his feet and continued his sprint through
the harvested field. The ground felt strangely uneven underneath his feet, off
to his right were some unusual dark shapes, lumps really. A horrible
realisation set in, the stubble of wheat here was stained a dark red, the
unevenness of the ground was due to horses milling in the area, lots of heavy
horses…
Balder ran to the
misshapen lumps but stopped short when he could see what they truly were, his
legs failed and he wretched a couple of times before actually vomiting. The
older lads, the young boys, they all lay here with their throats slit and their
bodies bruised, they had been herded together and slaughtered as if they were
animals.
“Ches.”
His lifelong friend
has been afforded special attention, not only was his throat slit but his guts
had been spilled and his ribcage torn open.
“Gods!”
He didn’t know what
to do, he couldn’t think. Tears ran down the side of his face and as he sat
there on the bloodstained ground he sobbed.
“You can’t help
them,” the demon stood next to the trembling young man, “for what it’s worth
I’m sorry, but we have to keep moving otherwise you’ll be lying there next to
your friend.”
“I can’t just leave
them like this,” Balder snivelled, he could feel nausea creeping upon him once
more.
The rumble of hoof
beats grew louder, “I don’t think that you’re going to have much choice in the
matter. Get going!”
Balder staggered to
his feet, his legs were trying to run before his body was quite ready but they
soon found their rhythm and he was once again sprinting towards the village.
Behind him he heard shouts, the soldiers were out of the forest and that meant
trouble, they could make real speed in the open plains.
Vaulting a gate
Balder found himself on the dirt path that led directly to the small village
from the northern fields. The livery no longer seemed like such a good idea,
with those soldiers hot on his tail he would probably never make it out of the
table let alone all the way to Prosperina. He needed a new plan, and he needed
it damn quickly.
Then as normally
happens in those situation when the neurons are firing and the adrenaline is
coursing through the viens he had a moment of inspiration, he saw the Cheshire
household up ahead. Now, where did he keep it..?
The tack room, Ches
always kept his gear together in a nice shaded room with cool air and no direct
sunlight, and the tack room was on the other side of the house. Running around
the brown stoned building Balder saw the room, its door was open as Ches’s
sister brought out the saddle for her pony. He cursed his luck, the door wasn’t
locked but instead a family member of his best friend stood watching him, he
could he tell her that her brother was dead? How could he even face her?
The sound of mounted
soldiers charging down the dirt path made that particular decision for him, he
ran past the raven-haired young woman and into the tack room.
“Will’s in the field,”
she called after him, “where you should be surely?”
“No time to explain,”
replied Balder as he grabbed a heavy pack of brown leather, “I’m borrowing this
for a while.”
He started to run
again but stopped by the girl, “Lucy, get the magistrate and tell him to get
some men up to Butcher’s fields. There’re foreign soldiers chasing me and
they’ve committed a terrible crime.”
“What soldiers? What
are you blathering about?”
Balder stared over
her shoulder, “Those soldiers! Get inside now! Get the magister when they’ve
gone!”
He vaulted the privy
hedge that served as a boundary to the Cheshire estate and hit the ground
running, he was on the cobbled path that led all the way through the town
centre and out the other side to the main road down the rim. It also led to the
mill, which was the ideal spot for what he had in mind so long as he lived long
enough to make it there. The trouble was that the once outside the town centre
the road to the mill became very open, and sods law the market was yesterday so
there would now be no convenient stalls for him to hide behind or handy crowds
to get lost in.
The alley between the
general store and the livery would be the safest route to duck down, the path
was playing out in Balder’s mind as he slipped between the buildings, the tower
of the arcanorium was directly ahead, and next to it sat the tavern awaiting an
evening’s merriment. Or what would have been an evening of merriment had these
foreign devils not shown up.
There were a few
people in the village square but they soon scattered as the soldiers charged
over the grey cobbles, their horses milled as the soldiers sought their quarry,
the enormous black warhorse of Abraxus however stood patiently awaiting his
master’s instruction.
“Find him,” the black
knight barked, his voice had a definite serpentine quality beneath the dark
timbre, “tear the village apart if you have to, just bring me that boy!”
The soldiers
dismounted and spread out to search, only Abraxus and the man with the look of
a captain remained in the square with the horses.
“This isn’t exactly
the subtle incursion that we had planned for,” the captain commented.
“I care not,” the
words insinuated themselves into existence, “I’ll crush this wretched little
island under my boot if I judge it necessary. The only thing that matters here
and now is that Balder Von Daryhiem dies.”
Balder stepped back
against the wall, hearing the fel knight actually say the words brought the
reality of the situation home to him, this wasn’t a case of mistaken identity
or a random act of violence, this was premeditated murder. The only thing that
matters here and now is that Balder Von Daryhiem dies, there was a certain
focus to that statement as well as the undeniable finality.
He crept back down
the alley, heading around via the tannery now seemed like a much better idea,
granted that meant going in the opposite of his intended direction but the
tannery had a nice big wall that dominated one end of the square. If he wanted
to make it to the far side of the town then this would be his best bet, that or
he could hide himself in a box and try to creep across the square when neither
the captain nor the fel knight were looking.
He preferred the
tannery idea.
*****
The wall at the
tannery wasn’t there in order to keep people out, its sole purpose was to try
and encourage the smell to go upwards and to this end it was at least
marginally effective. Outside the walls it merely smelled as if something had
died whereas inside it smelled as though something had died, decomposed, and
borne the evolution of a sentient bacterial life that in itself had died
because of the smell it made.
Balder wrapped a
heavy scarf around his face so that it covered his mouth and nose, he was glad
of his foresight although admittedly this was not how he had intended to make
use of the scarf, still it was better than the alternative.
From within he could
hear a couple of soldiers cursing the putrid stench, the poor fools were
unknowingly only a few feet from their quarry but from within the yard they may
as well have been miles away, they probably wished that they were. It was
better than the devils deserved.
Balder started
counting as he tiptoed along the wall, three… two… one…
The sound of someone
being violently sick shattered the relative quiet. So many young folk who had
never before set foot within the tannery, himself included Balder had to
concede made the cardinal mistake of peering into one of the tannery vats. This
was an act that involved having your face and more importantly your nose
directly over a concoction of the most unrelenting foulness known to man, and
it was a mistake that nobody ever made twice.
Good enough for them
Balder scowled as he slipped along the wall, he had passed beyond sight of the
square now and if the coast was clear he could dash across the road to the
blacksmiths and clamber over the rear yards to the mill lane. Of course from
there on he had the problem of the mill lane being completely devoid of any
form of cover, but he would worry about that bridge when he burned it.
The cobbled road was
clear of soldiers. It was clear of locals too but that was just the typical
Pyrrhan response, when there’s trouble you could always rely on Pyrrhans to
dash to the safety of the nearest tall building to get to the window with the
best view. The largest wartime import to the nation was popcorn.
He dashed across the
road and cursed as he heard a call from the tanners, one of the soldiers must
have had a stronger stomach than the other or else had taken the intelligent
option and had chosen to wait by the gate. Either way Balder was in trouble,
but thank the Gods for small favours, the soldiers didn’t have their horses.
He slammed the door
of the blacksmiths behind him and dropped the bar into place, it wouldn’t hold
them for long but it would do until he could get away.
“Quick,” Multhazzar
called from within his backpack, “grab something better than that sword of
yours, I think I’m getting tetanus just being this close to it.”
The only implements
in any state of completion were a couple of scythes, a bundle of horseshoes and
several pokers (as any Folk Park will have you believe, pokers are the
foundation of the blacksmith industry, a keystone in early economics), he
grabbed a scythe as wood splintered behind him. Part of the door had shattered,
a board was pulled back and broken away, thinking fast Balder grabbed a
horseshoe and lobbed it at the hand that had reached through to grasp the
locking bar. There came the sound of a nasty thump accompanied by a string of
expletives from outside.
Not waiting for the
next attempt Balder made a dash for the door to the yard at the rear.
Accidentally tearing the still pumping bellows with the scythe blade as he
rushed past, he grabbed a bucket of ash from next to the furnace and threw the
contents before the tear. The room was quickly filling with grey dust as he
entered the back yard, there were a couple of mossy stoned stables out here and
along one wall a lean-to store room.
The other wall
contained a simple three barred gate that opened to the pathway that led back
to the street and to the field behind, a pathway that one of the soldiers was
bound to notice eventually.
Balder clambered up
onto the store, his progress hampered somewhat by Ches’s heavy pack in one hand
and the scythe in the other, but through sheer will to live he made it onto the
shed roof and over the wall into the yard behind the bakers.
He was just making
his way onto the roof of the baker’s store when something whizzed by his head,
turning Balder saw a soldier on the wall behind him load another bolt into the
crossbow. The man’s hand was red and swollen so reloading was proving to be a
somewhat cumbersome operation, however once it was loaded the pain in his hand
served only to steel his resolve, as Balder observed just before he dove over
the wall to cover.
This was the back of
the library, which was an incredibly great thing he noted as he ran down the
big yard, after that small wall ahead it was a simple dart across the rim road
and then a dash down the mill lane. Chased by soldiers the entire way
admittedly, but it was a relatively hurdle-free sprint nonetheless.
Multhazzar hurled a
stream of abuse from the top of his backpack as another crossbow bolt whistled
by, most of the abuse appeared to be directed at Balder and his inability to
phase shift out of sight or teletranslocate himself across the opening.
“Imp, shut up!”
Balder shouted between breaths, “You aren’t helping” If you want to be useful
why don’t you throw fire at these bloody soldiers!”
“I can’t do that in
this form,” said the demon in distinctly soft tones, “and if I transfigure I’ll
only attract Abraxus, and that is a fight that is a little beyond me.”
Balder leapt the
small wall in a single fluid motion that would have shamed an Olympian, running
for his life giving him the added impetus that most professional athletes
lacked. He landed one foot on the cobbled street and was off again in long
strides, there was a shout and the clatter of horses’ hooves in the square as
he hit the dusty path that led to the mill.
Heavy cloth sacks of
flour lined the pathway, the best stuff always went to the local bakers in
simple honest-to-goodness sacks whilst the stuff in the bags marked ‘Finest
Flour of Vinalia’ was the cheap stuff marketed as ‘all natural, organic flour’.
City folk were dumb enough to pay extortionate prices for a poorer quality
product time and time again.
Balder didn’t
particularly care about any of this right now as he ran up the stone steps to
the mill, he knew that the knight and his entourage weren’t far behind him and
were probably gaining rapidly.
Running around to the
back of the mill Balder saw the enormous canvas sails turning in the updraft
from the centre of the crater along with the two other horizontal shafts with
their long, twisted blades extending out over the precipice. The mill was the
oldest building in Vinalia, built over an outcropping beneath which was a sheer
drop of fourteen thousand feet to the crater floor of Pyrrha, it was the ideal
site for a windmill and over time the village extended back from it.
Quickly tossing the
scythe to the ground he removed his backpack and hefted Ches’ heavy pack onto
his shoulders, securing the harness he then pulled his own pack over his chest
and ied the loose straps to the harness.
He could hear the
soldiers in the mill and on the steps outside. He saw one coming around after
him with sword drawn; Balder backed away and cautiously ducked under one of the
turning axles that extended out into the void. He had nearly reached the far
axle when he spotted another soldier coming from the opposite direction, the
man spoke something that was unintelligible to Balder though he assumed that it
was either a threat or a declaration of war, it had that intonation.
“I hope that you have
a brilliant plan,” said Multhazzar from under the flap of the backpack,
“because we are trapped, buddy boy.”
The black knight
Abraxus was coming up behind the second soldier, he was even more intimidating
when seen from this close, standing at nearly nine feet when you took into
account the three spikes that extended a foot from his helm. The fel knight
hefted a blood stained battleaxe with obvious malicious intent. A faint smell
of brimstone and burnt soil seemed to hang around him, his breath was a horrid
hiss that chilled to the bone.
“Actually, Imp,”
Balder replied as he saw the first soldier duck under the axle, “I happen to
have a truly fantastic plan.”
He hurled the scythe
at the soldier and ran for it, the handle smacking the man hard in the face as
he saw the younger man running towards him, his compatriot had given chase and
was gaining.
Then Balder turned
and dove off the walkway where the wall ended to allow the horizontal axle to
extended out, the soldier heard the young man yell ‘hold on!’ as he cartwheeled
in the air.
“The thought had
occurred to me!” Multhazzar was screaming as the greyish-brown cliff face
rushed inexplicably by whilst the forest on the crater floor far below was
growing at an alarming rate. “You’re out of your mind!”
Balder held his arms
out as the wind whipped at him, he did a somersault in the air and cheered
wildly as the landscape rushed around him, the demon had to admit it was an
exhilarating, if stupid way to die.
“Hold on tight,”
Balder shouted as he grasped a handle on the left strap on his chest and yanked
it hard.
Looking over the
young man’s shoulder Multhazzar saw a small parachute pop out of the backpack,
“What in the hell use is that thing going to be?!”
The pilot chute fed
out into the sky on a long thin line until suddenly the pack burst open and the
imp felt intensely uncomfortable as the blurring landscape seemed to kick back
to a normal pace, moments later they were drifting peacefully through the sky.
Slowly the demon turned his head upward and stared at the massive silk canopy
above their heads, it was wing-shaped and seemed to have a second layer
slightly above and was of a bright red colour just in case anyone would miss
it.
“Congratulations on
your first Current Jump,” Balder cheered, “of course normally we would stay in
the updraft to try and land above were we started but today I don’t think that
would be such a great plan.”
“Normally?”
Multhazzar looked at the young man as if he were insane, “You mean you do this
regularly?”
Balder pulled gently
on a cord to his right which resulted in the canopy performing a slow turn in
the air, “Oh yes, I was last year’s champion. Ches took the title from me this
year.”
The sport only really
existed on Pyrrha as there were few other places with such suitable updrafts,
but even at that most jumpers came from the rim villages such as Vinalia and
Zephyr, though sometimes you did get folk from down in Prosperina coming up to
try it.
The demon looked down
and saw that not far off, at least from this height, the whitewashed city of
Prosperina spread along the shore of the lake that lay central in the Pyrrhan
crater. The black specks that he saw on the water were ships heading across the
surface to the broken section of wall that open the lake out to the ocean. And
there standing out of the lake were the two enormous hollow spires known as the
Towers of the Twin Gods, the wind whistling through the openings to create the
haunting song that echoed throughout Pyrrha.
“You’re all mad, you
know that.”
“Mad? Not in the
slightest,” Balder replied as he admired the beauty of the sweeping landscape
around him, “this is as close as mankind will ever come to flying. The mill
jump is the best jump in all of Pyrrha but no one ever really does it because
of the risk of catching on the mill sails, and it takes a bloody fortnight to
get back up again if you miss the landing. But if you do jump it does reward
with the most spectacular view.”
Something hit the
canopy above them and tumbled away into the void, another grey blur shot by
less than six feet away.
“Rocks! The bastards
are throwing rocks at us!”
“If it’s just rocks
we’re getting away lucky,” Multhazzar stated, “with Abraxus up there-”
He was interrupted by
the approaching sound of screaming and a body in red armour overtook the pair
on their downward course.
“That was a soldier…”
“Yep, Abraxus would
have a fairly literal interpretation of sending men in pursuit.”
Another screaming
terrified soldier shot by.
*****
In a small grassy
plain the red canopy was stretched out as Balder carefully made the necessary
folds in order to ensure that it would open again flawlessly, though Multhazzar
personally hoped that he would never have to experience such lunacy again.
Quite a few humans experienced a long fall after they died, he couldn’t for the
unlife of him figure out why they would willingly go through it now, it isn’t
as though falling is the kind of thing that requires practice. Maybe they were
of the impression that you got awarded points for style.
The boy, well he
called him a boy though the lad must have been in his twenties, had been
strangely quiet since they had landed, he had just put his head down and began
working on that sail without so much as muttering to himself. Multhazzar didn’t
like it when humans were quiet, when their mouths were closed it generally
meant that they were thinking and that could lead to all kinds of trouble.
Balder folded the
last of the canopy into the pack and started towards a dense patch of forest
that was nestled against the imposing and impossibly tall cliff face,
Multhazzar started to follow him but was abruptly told to wait where he was.
The kicked up a minute cloud of dust and sat on the discarded backpack that lay
on the edge of the clearing, he muttered a couple of mild obscenities then
pulled a miniature hip flask out of thin air and took a long draw.
Under the shadow of
the cliff it was quite dark here amongst the trees in the thicket, taking a
moment to ensure that he was alone Balder laid the jump pack down and collapsed
in tears against a nearby tree. His whole world had been destroyed in a few
mere moments, all his friends had been mercilessly slaughtered and he was now
on the run from some vicious fel knight and his band of marauders.
But it was more than
just the murder of his friends and the hunt for his flesh that flayed his soul
and rends his heart. His father had been riding from Vinalia to Prosperina on
the only mountain route down to the city, his path would certainly have crossed
that of the foreigners and if they knew so intimately off Balder then they
would certainly know his father, and that would have been his end. Hope would
not stay with the young man, it was a far off thing that right now happened
only to other people.
He wanted to be sick,
he prayed for the ground to open up and consume him, he wished that his mother
had been barren that fateful night or that he had been stillborn, by the light
of the Gods why had he been visited with such villainy. He had been robbed of everything
that he had in the world bar the meagre existence that was his life, and they
wanted to take that from him too. He cried until no more tears would come and
his heart felt as a dead weight upon his chest, the world moved
unsympathetically forward and the shadows shifted across the land, he felt his
strength had left him as he watched time slowly pass by.
His father dead, his
friends murdered and his life in tatters all because of some unknown crime that
he had no knowledge of. Again the tears came in wretched sobs.
“I could claim to
understand what you are going through right now,” through hazy eyes Balder saw
Multhazzar sitting on a nearby log, “but I can’t because I am a demon and thus
lack the necessary faculties.”
Balder wiped his eyes
and tried to summon his strength, “I thought that I told you to wait in the
clearing.”
“You did,” the imp
replied dryly, “but you are neither a warlock, summoner nor a demonologist and
so have no exertion of will over me. Now, I have been given specific
instructions to get you off Pyrrha and as far away from Abraxus and his goons
as possible, so if you don’t get your arse in gear then I’m afraid that it will
be too late to do anything for you.”
“Unsympathetic little
bastard, aren’t you.”
“I wasn’t told to do
sympathy,” Multhazzar replied matter-of-factly, “and besides, anger is a far
more useful emotion than despair. Now dry your eyes and let’s get a move on.”
Balder tucked the
heavy jump pack into a nearby bush and started towards the distant haze of smog
that hung over Prosperina, the pack was too heavy to lug around and it was very
doubtful that it would be of any use from here on. Plus it was half a day’s
walk along the shoreline to the city and the idea of traipsing that distance
with such a dead weight along with his own gear was about as appealing as
finding a hungry leech spreading barbeque sauce on your nadgers.
He wiped his eyes as
he walked in the general direction of Prosperina, they should hit the lake soon
and from there it was easy to find your way. Somewhere overhead came the shrill
cry of a Pyrrhan Aigle, huge birds of prey that the druids of faraway Heimdahl
claimed kept watch over the land, Multhazzar confirmed this legend with the
asseveration ‘bloody gossips’.
*****
Hyldrassil is a young
world, relatively speaking, though it is ancient compared to the kingdoms that
have come and gone, it is the seed of a far older world, one thought to be the
cradle of the first life in the galaxy, a world known as Yggdrasil. But how
best to describe Hyldrassil, a world that is for all intents and purposes a
giant tree, and one of many scattered throughout the universe carrying the
promise of life to the stars. This is the science of astrodendrology, the study
of the World Trees and the universe in which they inhabit, and though it is
intricate we’ll try not to go to deep.
The nature of the
universe itself has been the subject of debate since the first monkey looked up
and said ‘Ooh, pretty’ (actually he probably said ‘Oook’ meaning that he wanted
to play with his faeces, but it was a good analogy nonetheless). Theories
abound about the exact shape and structure of our local reality, every
configuration from a bubble to a doughnut has been put forward at one time or
another as the absolute definitive truth. These shapes whilst all equally
plausible within the realm of astrophysics really serve only to show how
limited the human mind really is, we can imagine a limited universe so long as
it is confined within something. In these forms the universe is only infinite
via a technicality, in that if you start at one point and keep going in the
same direction you will eventually come back to where you started, you can’t
reach and edge because there is only a curve.
These theories all
rely on the same principle that the universe is expanding in all directions
from an impossibly ancient explosion know as the Big Bang, or as you will soon
come to know it (from the Hyldrassil perspective) the Wee Drip.
The universe is in
point of fact infinite, it has no shape because it is infinite, and it has no
edge any more than it has a curve. It is also largely empty. It isn’t a bubble
floating in an energy pool with tendrils of superstrings spreading out across
all existence, it is just space, lots and lots of space.
There is however a
substate of this vast nothingness, a realm of pure energy and consciousness,
its all very quantum, and occasionally a wayward wave of energy will break
against another which results in an outburst that releases upon the universe
itself.
Imagine if you will a
sheet of blotting paper spread flat on the table, and on this paper a single
drop of ink falls upon it, see how the droplet spreads out across the paper.
Now another drop falls elsewhere on the page, and maybe another, now scale
things up a bit and try to think of the paper as three dimensional rather than
two dimensional so that the ink drops burst and spread anywhere. These are
universes as we understand them coming into existence, the universe isn’t a
bubble onto itself but something in which a bubble of matter will spread
through.
Over aeons this
bubble continues to spread across the paper and begins to fade as it does so,
eventually it will fade away completely except where it crosses the expanding
bubble of another inkblot. Maybe in the subrealm another two waves crash
together and a fresh burst of energy is released into the universe, or in this
metaphor another droplet falls on the page.
Now if you were to
lift the sheet of blotting paper you will also see a stain on the table where
the ink has soaked through, this is because all matter is condensed energy and
still holds a connection to that subrealm from whence it came.
In the universe there
are some places more fertile than others are, these would be the areas where
there is an expanding bubble of energy, these fertile areas would be more
commonly known as galaxies, and it is here that the World Trees take root.
Look at any world and
you will see that it is more or less spherical, this is because the sphere form
is a very natural and highly efficient shape if you want to have an evenly
distributed gravitational field. What you won’t see are the giant roots
extending from the southern polar region or the boughs in which might sit a
moon or twenty. This isn’t because you have poor eyesight or because they aren’t
there, it is simply because they are on a different plane of existence. The
roots seep into the subrealm of energy and sustain the tree whilst the boughs
absorb energy from the local star in a remarkable case of photosynthesis to
sustain life itself.
Because of the
constant ebb and flow of sub-universal energy the trees exist in what might be
defined as a Multiverse, there are two distinct forms of the world with an
infinity of shades and possibilities in between. Hyldrassil represents one form
of the world whilst at the other end of reality there is Goldrassil, its mirror
image. They exist in this manner as a way of balancing the colossal energies
that would otherwise tear them apart. Strangely unlike most other trees
Hyldrassil and Goldrassil are not in perfect balance, this has resulted in a
tiny amount of energy seeping onto the worlds and having all kinds of weird
effects. This energy is called Mana and is the source of all magic.
Like all trees the
World Ashes can produce seed when the time is right, as was the case with
Hyldrassil and ancient Yggdrasil, and like all seeds to their sire the pair
were linked until events in the world’s history severed this connection.
So to recap: The
universe is infinite and matter explosions are like inkblots spreading across
the nothingness and ruining your furniture. These blots are fertile areas in
which worlds take root and a constant flow of energy surrounds the worlds, and
because there is an imbalance on Hyldrassil there are manipulatable levels of
sub-universal energy seeping in. And each world is linked to its parent tree
unless a fight breaks out and the link is broken.
Isn’t astrodendrology
fun.
*****
They skirted along
the lakeshore, the only real moment of note for the last couple of hours being
when a spur of granite extending from the crater wall to the shore forced them
to go for a wade. This entailed Balder edging out into the water whilst
Multhazzar sat on his shoulders, he explained that he couldn’t touch the water
for very vague demonic reasons, Balder assumed that he meant laziness.
On the other side of
the great stone outcropping they came across a vast tract of land that had been
cleared of trees and plant life to be surfaced with a coarse gravel, it looked
like it came all the way from the city and ran to the crater wall.
“This must be the new
Harvest Highway they’re building,” commented Balder as they started down the
clearing, the gravel crunching under their feet with each step. “The government
is trying to improve the infrastructure between the city and the rim villages,
Vinalia is the first to get connected to the new highway network.”
“Sounds like a waste
of time to me,” Multhazzar snorted, “wider mountain paths aren’t going to help
you actually get up the bloody mountain any more quickly.”
Balder turned and
after scanning along the tree line he pointed to an incomplete stone structure
extending just slightly above the trees, it seemed to have been built against
the crater wall and was surrounded by scaffolding.
“That’s the base of
the elevator station they’re constructing, the sister for it has already been
built at the top of the cliff, fourteen thousand feet up, about a mile from the
mill road. When it is finished it will have two cars, one at the top and one at
the bottom, they’ll work as a counterbalance with one going up as the other
goes down.”
Multhazzar took in
the details of the cliff face, even from here he could see were heavy wooden
beams had been fixed to the stone to act as guide rails and they already
extended a third of the way up the wall of stone. He could make out a crane
structure on the cliff edge suspending a massive box that must have contained
the construction crew adding the next beam, he had never before seen a project
of such scale.”
Human ingenuity never
ceased to amaze the diminutive demon, their capacity for inventiveness had even
forced the demons to throw their hands up and cry, “You win!” No matter what
evils the demons perpetrated the humans topped them on a daily basis, and most
humans did it simply because they could. The Dark Lord himself conceded defeat
after the first humans arrived in Niflheim, it wasn’t that they rose up against
him or anything but simply that even the most excruciating punishment became
mundane to humans after only a few months. He was out of ideas so he simply left
them to it, as a result the Dark Lord hasn’t been seen in a while, rumour has
it that he lives on a secluded island spending his days surfing and avoiding
humans.
The demons now
realising that they were unemployed took up whatever jobs were available on Hyldrassil,
usually as spectres, poltergeist, and when necessary as door to door salesmen.
They don’t really do evil anymore because, comparatively speaking they just
aren’t very good at it.
“When the elevator is
finished and the highway is cobbled they say that the two week journey from
Prosperina to Vinalia will be reduced to about four hours,” Balder commentated
with no real sign of enthusiasm in his voice, he was still emotionally drained.
“It’s all the talk of the village, mostly because it will destroy the value of
our produce since it will become so easy to acquire, and of course then you’ll
get city folk moving in, and with them follows city crime.”
“You aren’t really so
naïve to think that there isn’t any crime in your village now, are you?”
Multhazzar sneered, “You aren’t that dumb?”
“Of course there is
crime in Vinalia,” Balder replied without rising to the insult, “but we all
know it’s either Thick Reg or Daft Ron, their crimes are always monitored and
taxed.”
“You tax crime?”
Multhazzar could see another one of those human creations looming.
“Of course,” said
Balder, “it’s income isn’t it.”
“Yeah, but… surely
they don’t declare it?”
“They would have to
give it back otherwise.”
It made no sense,
Multhazzar knew that it made no sense and he cursed himself for living in a
world in which such logic determined ‘truth’.
“What about other
crimes?”
Balder thought about
that for a second, “What like?”
“Well, Murder? Rape?”
“Murder isn’t
allowed, and you can only perform a rape if you get notarised permission first.”
No, don’t rise to it.
He’s bound to have some stupid flawed logic behind that statement.
“ITS NOT RAPE IF IT’S
CONSENSUAL!”
“Oh yeah, I’m
thinking of adultery. No, rape isn’t allowed either. They hang you for that,
yes it’s technically murder but everything is done perfectly legally and above
board.”
“What, do you force
rapists to take a jump from the mill without a pack or something?”
“Oh, you’ve seen our
courts at work?”
A short while later
the pair came across the construction crew packing the heavy stone slabs
together that would eventually make up the road surface. There were dozens of
big, burly men and in the tradition of road workers everywhere at least half of
them were leaning on their shovels surveying the scene. On closer inspection it
appeared that the crew was mostly comprised of Lycans, the collective name for
the various races of beasts who walked like men but still resembled the
creatures of their various clans. The half-light of dusk revealed their true
nature and they would stay as such until dawn when the day shadows gave them
human form once more.
The Lycans were quite
possibly the oldest race on Hyldrassil, certainly in an age past they had
commanded a vast empire spanning all of Vanaheim and Amaldaar whilst the first
humans were getting to grips with that bright stuff that burned things.
Mysteriously the empire disappeared almost overnight leaving only the land of
Lycanholme for them to call their own, the race never fully recovered from the
fall. The last of their strength had been broken when they went to war against
the Vastian High Kingdom, the last of the great human empires of old crushed
the Lycan armies on the Hylaan Fields of Midas, and from thence forth the once
noble Lycans became reticent and reclusive. Those who did leave their ancestral
home to explore the world could usually find work only as unskilled trade and
labourers, doing jobs that most humans did not want.
The road itself was
coming together at a remarkable pace, from the looks of things it should be
completed just in time for the inaugural run of the elevator.
The Lycans barely
passed notice of the sullen young man as he hopped onto the completed section
of road and followed it like a river of stone flowing to the city, most averted
their eyes to avoid meeting the human’s gaze. Multhazzar kept himself hidden
under the flap of the backpack since he was under the impression that the less
people saw of a demon hanging around the young man the better he might go
unremarked.
Balder could feel
despair filling up his soul once more, damming up in his psyche, threatening to
burst and overwhelm him, to drown him in emptiness and sorrow, and deep beneath
it all he felt a growing fire of rage. He needed to keep that flame alight, he
was clearer in the anger, his thoughts were sharper and more focused, the sheer
outrage give him the passion that he needed to plan his revenge.
“Imp, tell me why
that knight is trying to kill me,” Balder’s teeth were clenched as he spoke,
“tell me why my friends had to die, and why I know that he killed my father.”
“I didn’t know that
you knew about that,” replied Multhazzar with genuine surprise, “Abraxus killed
your father because he wanted to change the future, and he is determined to
kill you because he is trying to change his own destiny.”
“That’s stupid,”
Balder spat the words as if they left a foul taste in his mouth, “those people
did not deserve to die over a foolish and archaic notion such as destiny!”
“It’s not so stupid
as you might think,” Multhazzar replied dryly, “Abraxus succeeded in changing
the events of history, but so far history has found a way to ensure that the
story will still reach the same end. History is malleable but destiny itself is
absolute. Abraxus knows this, and he is fighting it.”
“Why? What is so
important about me that I can affect his destiny?”
“You’re going to kill
him.”
Balder stopped in his
tracks, “Now that is stupid! Until this morning I didn’t even know that he
existed, what possible motive or excuse could I have for killing someone I’ve
never met?”
Although he wouldn’t
say it aloud the idea of killing Abraxus did now hold a certain appeal.
“You see, that’s
destiny at work that is,” Multhazzar tried to sound as sage-like as his
somewhat piccolo voice allowed, “in trying to kill you he has set in motion the
events that will inevitably lead to his own destruction. It’s a common human
error made by villains throughout history, they never know when to leave well
enough alone. That’s the real trick behind prophecies, the future is an
entirely random state until it happens, and then it becomes history. But if you
tell a human that they are going to do something then subconsciously they will
do everything in their power to ensure that it happens, even if it is something
that they do not wish to happen.”
“That sounds
spurious.”
“Does it really?”
Multhazzar tapped Balder’s shoulder and indicated that he should walk on,
“Destiny isn’t some serpent waiting to spring upon the unwary traveller,
destiny is just the name given to the path before you, but only you can choose
to walk that path to whatever end it might lead.”
As he strode down the
empty new highway with the evening sun gradually starting to sink in the sky
Balder thought about the path that was before him now. His world had been
turned upside down, his family and friends murdered, he himself on the run from
some fel knight and his soldiers. No matter how he tried to look at the
situation he could only see this path coming to an abrupt end, quite possibly
over a chasm.
*****
On a land far, far
away from the troubles of the young apprentice mage an intoxicated man sat at a
bar, a feat that no publican on the planet could describe as unusual, the drunk
was also in a maudlin state of mind, another feat of gross mundanity.
The pub was a busy
tavern known as the Black Guard and was in the trade district of the Mage City
of Ameer Hesh, the capital city of the Vanutian Dominions. The pub itself took
its name from a somewhat legendary tribe of man who were renowned for having
banished an ancient race of false gods and burning the bridge that would allow
them to return to Hyldrassil. The destruction of the bridge not only destroyed
the Gateway Isles but also caused the mana eruption that became the volcano of
Pyrrha and changed the face of the world forever. Most of the tribe died that
day almost two thousand years ago and those who remained now lived in peace in
the village of For Humm in the small land of Kardiak between the three
dynasties of Auraksis.
This was the legend
of the Bridge Burners that the world knew, few knew the whole truth of their
story, the dictators toppled, the invasions quashed and the wars averted. These
were the things that could be hidden from the public eye, the cost of peace in
a world that balance on a razor’s edge over oblivion.
“I used to be great,”
the drunk moaned into his beer, “I led the armies of Strenia against the last
High Kingdom. Me! A Vastian myself and I brought doom upon my people, and only
because I had the misfortune of being born outside the city in one of the first
villages to fall. I didn’t even know what it meant at the time, I was a general
and the empire in the city were the enemy.”
His companion sat in
silence, occasionally he sipped at the ale before him but mostly he listened,
that was what he did, he listened to every detail no matter how trivial and
then he would ensure that it was all carefully recorded in the histories.
“And oh how we
crushed them,” he continued, “the ballistas soared through the sky spitting
fire in their wake and breaking the walls like the fingers of the Eidolons. The
Vastians were broken, the few who remained were scattered to the wind to await
their destiny of nothingness. I hear that your lot even has one.”
For the first time
the quiet man spoke, “In name only, it is not his bloodline.”
“Doesn’t matter,
someday the Inquisition will come for him, just as they came for me. If it
hadn’t been for the loyalty of my men I would be a much less complete person
today.”
“The Inquisition
wouldn’t dare,” said the quiet man in an off-hand comment, “there are forces in
this world that even they must respect.”
“Quite true,” the
drunk sighed, “but they might not yet be aware of that fact. I’m tired. Tired
of fighting, tired of being on the wrong side of a conflict ending that seems
to be without end, wrought with foulness and ruin.
“Did you know? Did
you know after Vastinopolis fell my forces walked across Raan as if it were
already ours, they had no fight left in them once the rumours spread of
barbarism shown in the great city. I would have crushed Tithonus too had it not
been for the Inquisition and their desire to eliminate what little remained of
the Vastian bloodline. I could never figure that out, why would they do such a
thing? It wasn’t as if there were even enough true-blood Vastians left for an
uprising, there were few enough remaining to form a decent picket line and yet
the Church decided that they, we must all die? It makes no sense to me that
they would go so far even to turn on those who served Strenia and even on her
Generals in the midst of a war.”
“Maybe one of your
kind is destined to carry the light of the High Kingdom,” the quiet man
ventured.
“Yeah, with sword in
one hand and an olive branch in the other, posies in his hair and sunlight
shining out of his arse.”
“Rather cynical,
don’t you think?”
The drunk snorted,
“No, I am a realist. The time of the Vastian people has been and gone, anything
that rises from the ashes will be nought but a pale imitation. The world of the
mage and the mana stone is coming to an end, it is the time of the ballista and
the steam engine now. Technology is taking over on the path once tread by magic
and those who do not keep up will find themselves swallowed up and devoured by
the New Order.”
The quiet man sipped
once more at his beer, the crowd in the tavern paid them no heed, it was not
the first time that a tired soldier had gotten depressed about the direction in
which the world was headed and had chosen to drunkenly voice his opinions.
Sebastian Pygmalion probably had greater reason than most to be depressed for he
was a true-blood Vastian and a cousin to the former Royal Family. During the
early years of Strenia’s rising his village had been swallowed up, he was just
a baby at that foreboding time of change. Twenty two years ago he was in his
early thirties and a General of great renown, a natural leader and knowing
nothing of his heritage he crushed the failing High Kingdom, and in so doing he
destroyed his past. He was now a man hunted by the very people whom his deeds
had made great, and he was doomed for a bloodline that he did not even
understand.
“Technology is the
way forward,” the drunken General sunk further into his melancholy, “Strenia is
getting better in developing their machina of war, and I hear that Moldor has
twice now attempted invading the southern kingdoms. That last time they nearly
succeeded in laying a railway across the Badlands for shifting their troops. It
is only a matter of time before they succeed in getting a foothold down here,
don’t you think?”
“No,” said the quiet
man with a resolute firmness, “the Moldorans are overconfident in their
technological might. The first time they came here they were wiped out because
they foolishly chose to camp over a nest of creatures that devour all
non-magical life, they thought that they could easily overpower such beings.
Their second attempt failed because they were so sure of the dread they
inspired that they failed to realise that the Black Guard were amongst the
slaves building their railroad, and that the rails were moving imperceptibly
apart. At the ruins of Ish Hundaar their steam engine derailed and they found
themselves surrounded by a combined Auraksian army, the Moldoran technology
useless because it was still packed up for transport. The Moldorans will never
gain a foothold here because they fail to comprehend a magical civilisation as
a threat.”
It was the turn of
Sebastian to sit in silence, his worldview was that darkness was closing in all
around him and he couldn’t see this light that the Black Guard Chronicler was
insisting still existed. He could see only enemies gathering on every side and
a greater, brooding evil somewhere in the background biding it’s time.
“Avengerius,” he said
at last, “do you really believe that there is a Vastian out there who can
restore the legacy of the High Kingdom?”
“I do not think that
restore is the correct word,” Avengerius the Chronicler replied, “but I do
believe that there is one who can stop the world from sinking further into
darkness and destitution.
*****
Chaos Theory states
that in any system of disorder you can find an underlying pattern of order,
which is of course subject to entropy within itself, and under which there is
another intricate pattern. All that really means is that if you watch something
for long enough you will get very bored and start coming up with overly
elaborate sentences that could be roughly translated as ‘Oh, déjà vu’. This
wordplay system has been used for years by quantum physicists to show how smart
they are in comparison to other people and to attract women, you only think that
you know sleazy until you meet a drunk physicist. The Arcanists of Hyldrassil
have come up with the same theory because they want to meet women too (and to
justify their otherwise pointless jobs that had previously involved pulling
rabbits out of hats and other forms of pest control).
Bar fights tend to
follow a similar pattern of entropy and inertia. You start with the breakdown
of order, usually by the guy closest to the keg and from thence spreads a wave
of disorder as he falls in a pool of his own vomit. The wave spreads out as
patrons move or are pushed out of the way and into the path of other patrons,
drinks are spilled, noses are knocked, feels are copped, and soon the wave
crashes against the far wall and sometimes against the ceiling too. Order
slowly returns as some reconcile their differences but soon breaks down again
as they suddenly both realise that they have an unresolved issue with the
closest person to them and they move in using a classic pincer formation.
It all goes to show
that some of these quiet country pubs really could use some other form of
entertainment to pass a Satyrday afternoon, possibly a flickering box showing
grown men kicking an inflated bladder about.
The Twisted Ankle
tavern sat on the outskirts of the whitewashed city of Prosperina, built just
metres beyond the city limits allowed it to call itself a traditional country
tavern and thus have an excuse for its ‘rustic’ appearance. Dilapidated is
another word that came to mind when looking at the building. The other reason
for being just beyond the city limits was that the publican could take
advantages of lucrative tax breaks, such as not having to pay City Tax, Guild
rates or trade duty.
This evenings bar
fight was just coming to a close as Balder stepped through the doors, the next
one wasn’t due to start for another couple of hours, time enough for him to
grab a bite to eat and get on the road again.
He ordered what he
knew would turn out to be assorted bits of pig in various stages of
disfigurement served in a small pool of grease with black bits floating in it,
he also ordered a pint of strong ale to try and cover the flavour. Pint in hand
he made his way through the settling crowd and made himself comfortable at an
unoccupied table in a darkened corner, then with that done he sat and stared
blankly at his beer. Weariness washed upon Balder like a tidal wave, the events
of the day once again threatening to overtake him in a flood of funereal
emotions. He sighed long and hard as he tried to keep his mind on the here and
now, he needed to get some sort of plan together otherwise he’ll end up
standing at the harbour pointing from ship to ship going ‘eanie meanie mynie
moe’.
At some point a plate
of blackened meat and grease that more resembled a natural disaster than dinner
was set in front of him, but Balder completely failed to register its presence,
he was lost somewhere between the untouched ale and the stained dark wood of
the heavy table.
A commotion at the
bar finally brought him back to the real world, a hunched figure hidden within
a faded brown robe was being shoved aside by a crowd of gruff men who gave off
the same universal aura shared by bullies everywhere.
“Man before beast,”
sneered the obvious ringleader as he gave the robed figure a push that sent him
sprawling. The other men laughed at this, the robed one whimpered which only
seemed to spur the bully on further, “Surely your kind should be drinking from
a saucer out back? What right do you think you have round here? There’s a sign
on the door says ‘no pets allowed’.”
Balder left his
backpack at the table and made his way through the growing circle of
spectators, Multazzar took the opportunity to hop unnoticed onto the rafters
just in time to see the bully deliver a sharp kick to the chest of the
prostrate figure.
“Hey,” the crowd
parted around Balder, “if you think you’re such a big man why don’t you have a
go at someone closer to your own size.”
Balder may have been
the blond-haired, blue eyed boy but he was still over six feet tall and well
built, not barbarian-invader build but athletic with enough obvious muscle
definition. Plus he still had his sword strapped to his back.
“This don’t concern
you, farm-boy,” the bully growled, “go back to your shandy and leave us with
the beast.”
The cowering figure
crawled towards Balder, shaking in fear and pain as he did so. The bully took a
step forward.
“RETURN TO THE BAR NOW!” Quick as a flash Balder had turned to an
attack posture, his body sideways to the bully with one hand stretched before
him and the other grasping the hilt of his sword. The bully and his posse
backed away but this was probably less to do with the threatening pose and more
to do with the fact that Balder’s eyes had turned black yet were somehow
glowing and seeping a purple mist. The command barked in the strange foreign
tongue also helped to throw them off balance, they may not have understood the
words but they could sense that the speech was all in upper case.
“Hey, relax,” the
bully said with his hands raised in a gesture of conciliation, “we were just
messing around. No harm intended.”
Balder reached down
and helped the robed figure to his feet, he glanced once to the posse, “I
suggest that you guys learn a little respect before you run across someone less
merciful than myself.”
The robed one gripped
Balder’s arm as he attempted to steady himself and he could feel the long claws
within the robe as the figure breathed in a ragged rasp. He led the cloaked
figure to his table and offered him a seat near the hearth. The crowd had
dispersed upon seeing that there was going to be no action so the pair was once
again largely ignored.
“Thank you for your
assistance, young human,” the figure said, his voice was a hiss as if he were
speaking through fangs.
“I cannot tolerate
bullies,” Balder replied, “and I despise racists.”
He could see the
outline of scaly flesh within the darkened hood, of serpentine eyes appraising
him and a superior sense of smell tasting the air around him for any hint of
deception or malevolent intent.
“I know of many clans
of Lycans,” continued Balder, “but I must admit that I have never before heard
of one matching your description.”
The Lycan pulled back
his hood slightly, just enough to allow the tavern light to illuminate his face
and cast strange shadows across the spiny ridges that defined it.
“I am a Drake Lycan,
dragon descent,” he said softly, “my kind are few in number, we are… an
embarrassment to our people.”
“An embarrassment? If
you do not mind me asking, how could you be an embarrassment to your people
just because of your birth?”
“How much do you know
of the wars between our peoples?”
Balder thought for
few moments, his father had tried to educate him as fully as possible in the
history of the world but the library of Vinalia was somewhat scant in reading
materials.
“I only know a
little, and that mankind could not exactly be called an innocent party in the
altercations.”
“Quite,” the Drake
said, “during the First Age my clan was the ruling caste of our people, and
when the war came we made one tragic mistake, it was an act of desperation but
unforgivable nonetheless. We consorted with demons beyond the likes the world
has ever known, and unwittingly we brought genocide to Hyldrassil on a scale
never before imagined in even the worst moments of your kind. In shame our clan
went into exile on the mirror world, along with many others of the Lycan
people, only a few of us remained to ensure that the mistakes of the past would
never be repeated, and the gates of Goldrassil were sealed.”
“But you went to war
against the Vastians five hundred years ago.”
“And lost,” the Lycan
spoke solemnly, “that was the Lupercal Clan, the wolves. They could not forgive
humanity for a war that cost our race its honour. They watched humans war
amongst themselves and with their false gods and when they could stomach no
more they struck at the Vastian Kingdom, then the heart of your peoples. But
the Vastians were naturally powerful in magic, far more so than even the
greatest shamans of my kind and in the end the Lycan armies were overwhelmed in
the kingdom now known among your kind as Midas.”
Balder shifted a few
blackened pieces of food about on his plate without any real interest or
desire, it served more to remind him of the possibility of eating rather than
to encourage actual consumption. He listened to the Drake’s story and could
fully understand how the animosity between their peoples came to be, they had a
history that started badly and gradually got worse until the Lycans closed
their borders. Now humanity outnumbered their race by a figure roughly two
hundred to one and could not be trusted to not flex that collective muscle.
“I thank you for
protecting me, and for hearing me speak,” the Lycan slowly stood up from the
table, it was clear that he still felt some pain in his body but must move on
nonetheless. The story of his clan was a tale of woe and a cause for derision
within his own kind, but it was also all that the Drakes really had left and
they needed to ensure that the lessons were not forgotten. “I fear that I must
now take my leave of you, my journey must continue.”
Balder stood and held
his hand in what he hoped was the traditional Lycan sign of a friendly parting,
the Drake made a reciprocal movement and Balder knew that he had got it right.
“I am Malecghos of
the Drakes, Cleric of the Wind, Malec to you, my friend.”
“Balder Von Daryhiem,
apprentice mage,” Balder replied, “I wish you well wherever your path may take
you.”
“And good luck to you,” Malec said in the same foreign tongue that
Balder’s father used when teaching the manipulation of mana, “your kind has suffered more than mine ever
had at the hands of those you once called your friends. I wish you providence
on the journey that is before you, for I can see the shadows of destiny like an
aura surrounding you.”
Balder nodded,
between the use of his educational tongue and the general bizarreness of the
statement had left him unsure as to how best to respond, what exactly did he
mean by ‘his kind’?
They parted company
and Balder once again found himself sitting in the smoky air and staring at the
most horrid looking plate of burnt slop ever to have befallen the world, it
looked far worse now that it had cooled a little. They called this a
‘traditional fry’ but whatever people it been considered traditional to must
have long ago succumbed to heart failure. He tried a bite of what was either a
hash brown, a mushroom, or gravel scraped up from around the bins outside, he
then attempted in vain to wash the flavour away with a large mouthful of the
dark ale.
“So just out of
curiosity,” a voice came from beneath the table, “what would you have done if
they had chosen to fight? Would you actually have drawn that sword?”
“I tried to,” Balder
replied softly, “the bloody thing is stuck.”
“Ah,” Multhazzar was
lounging across the flap of the backpack and visibly suppressing a chuckle,
“well you can always use the scabbard to bludgeon anyone you see as a threat.
How did you do that thing with your eyes?”
“What thing with my
eyes?”
“You know, black…
misty?”
“Oh that. Happened
again, did it?”
Multhazzar picked a
bit of meat from between his teeth, “That a common thing for you, is it?”
“Tends to happen when
I get.. emotional,” Balder shifted his food about his plate again, “my father
explained that it was because I had a natural affinity for shadow mana and it
tends to manifest according to my emotional state if I forget to keep it under
control.”
“Fair enough,” the
demon responded disinterestedly, “any chance that we could go now? You and I
both know that you aren’t going to eat that crap.”
Balder shifted the
mess once again, although he might have been imagining things he could have
sworn that his fork was smaller than when he had started. He found that what
was on the plate before him was very quickly becoming one of the most
depressing aspects of this day, more depressing still was the fact that he had
been forced to pay for it before seeing the dish. Too late to refuse to pay for
this garbage, it was a well thought out strategy by the landlord, Balder would
have commended him on his business acumen if it hadn’t been himself who had
just gotten the shaft.
“Yeah, let’s get out
of here.”
*****
The sun was just
sinking beneath the peaks of the rim wall and the shadows were growing long,
the brightest of the evening stars shone through the gaps between the wispy
clouds and crickets could be heard singing in the hedgerows. Somewhere in the
trees beyond the road an owl was hooting.
“We’ll need to find
you a brothel for the night.”
“I’m sure that you
mean ‘hostel’,” Balder said as he stepped onto the stone highway that gently
sloped into the heart of the city and would eventually lead to the harbour.
“No, I mean brothel,”
Multhazzar replied, “you could do with some sort of distraction and there are
few people more vigilant than ladies of rentable repute when it comes to
looking out for hostile men.”
“I’m not really in
the mood for such… indulgence. I’d rather find the first boat to Midas and get
the hells away from here.”
“I’m getting pretty
sick of this wallowing in self-pity phase that you’re going through. People are
dead, it’s not your fault. Deal with it and move on!”
They trudged down the
road in silence, the paraffin lamps along the roadside flickering as a mild
breeze blew up from the harbour and carrying with it the faint hum of the Song
of the Twin Gods.”
“I don’t know how
people live here with that racket,” Multhazzar broke the silence, “how in the
name of all the Shades of Niflheim do people sleep with that constant humming?”
“I imagine that they
take comfort in hearing their Gods sing.”
“Most Gods have
enough decency not to talk to their flock,” the imp spoke dryly, “when they do
you generally find that people misinterpret them and end up killing virgins and
dancing naked in a forest.”
“Unfortunately I
can’t say that I’ve ever heard of that sort of thing going on here.”
The whitewashed
houses gradually gave way to shops and guild offices, all whitewashed with an
added tint of smog. As a rule Prosperina never really slept, though nobody
could say for certain if this was for commerce or crime, ‘entertainment’
generally falls into both categories on Pyrrha rather than warranting a
separate group for consideration. A good mugging was usually more fun than the
theatre and so long as you weren’t the mugee it was generally cheaper too.
As they neared the
City Square and the main thoroughfare to the harbour district the number of
reputable premises gave way to an increasing number of restaurants, taverns and
‘financial centres’. The ladies of negotiable repute preferred to call
themselves financial advisors because based on your finances they could advise
you on exactly what you were going to get.
It was reckoned that
the population of Prosperina was just over the eighty thousand mark, there was
no accurate figure available as census forms rarely got returned out of the
deeply held Pyrrhan fear that the tax man might come round. One or two people
might get counted twice (for reasons of claiming disability benefits) but this
is balanced out by the number of people who dabble in a little identity theft
to shift the responsibility onto someone else.
At any given time
there might be a further ten thousand seamen and merchants in the harborage,
dockyards, and numerous inns and houses of financially determined repute, and
the closer than you came to the harbour the more of the population you found on
the streets.
Balder found himself
trying to stay as close to the walls as possible, he felt uncomfortable in the
street lights now that he knew he was a hunted man, the shadows along the
storefront might give him some chance of avoiding any trouble.
Ahead a tavern door
slammed open allowing the din of a few dozen conversations accompanied by the
sound of a fiddle wailing some vigorous ditty to erupt into the night, Balder
stopped in a convenient shadow to see what would happen next.
In the end it wasn’t
particularly exciting, a group of drunken corsairs with the tanned skin of
Minaarkand stumbled into the broad street, they were singing a somewhat crude
song about a fair maiden called Venus with a rather unusually shaped body. They
each held a flagon of ale in their hands and were far too merry to pay much
heed to the crowds around them, this was the harbour district and if anyone had
a problem with happy sailors then they should politely bugger off to one of the
other districts.
There were plenty of
taverns in this area due to the aforementioned ten thousand approximate
visitors to the city, at least half of which must have been on the streets at
this very moment. There were faces from all over the world here- gruff,
long-haired Vikings from Althaea; black skinned merchants from Nu; pale,
heavily accented druids from Heimdahl; there were even a few Lycans. This last
group stuck together in close company and was trying to stay out of sight in
much the same way as Balder.
A mild commotion up
ahead attracted the attention of the majority of the crowded street, people
were shuffling to move to the sides of the thoroughfare and to clear the way,
even the drunks were shifting to make room. Balder melted back into the shadows
but then saw that his fear was unwarranted, those who approached were not the
black and red armoured soldiers who had ransacked his home and life, no these
men had the respect of the community.
Their armour shone in
the flickering street lamps and over the near glowing chain mail they wore
tabards of regal blue upon which embossed in exquisite silver was an elaborate
three pointed star, the longest point facing downwards with the others like
outstretched arms. The image of a man was further enhanced by the small diamond
above the star like a head, a behind it was a small halo like a shield.
The crowds stood in
silence as these five proud knights strode by, many bowed their heads in quiet
reverence whilst others whispered blessings and uttered prayers of good
fortune.
Balder did not
recognise the uniform, though he could recognise a certain divine energy like
an aura that surrounded the knights. He spotted an Owl Lycan in the shadows
nearby, quietly he made his way over and though the Lycan backed away at first
he was able to enquire as to the nature of the knights, an act that shocked the
Owl somewhat. The Owl had assumed that humans naturally knew those they
venerated rather than just throwing around faith so blindly and without
question. Balder had to explain that until today he had spent most of his life
in a quiet mountain town reading books about magic, alchemy, harvests and
exotic animals (just for a bit of variety).
“Those men are
knights from Midas,” the Lycan said softly, “Paladins in the Order of Aryia.”
“The ones who build
all the hospitals?”
The name of the Order
rang a bell with Balder, he had read about them long ago, knights who appeared
in war torn lands to build safe havens for those wounded and they did not
discriminate against whom they healed. It was an old Order created around 1200AX
by the Vastians in honour of Aryia, Demigod of Healing.
“Indeed, young human.
They are a very forward thinking society, very compassionate even towards my
kind, they are much honoured amongst my people.”
“I wonder why they
are on Pyrrha? There is not a hospital here so far as I know, and we are not at
war with anyone.”
“I fear that war may
be coming to this land,” the Lycan said with sorrow in his voice, “there are
rumours that a force of Strenian soldiers have landed here, an act that could
easily be a precursor to invasion. The Paladins have been trying to keep the
war on Amaldaar from spreading, the nations of Vanaheim are strong enough but
as I understand it the King of Midas fears that Pyrrha is ill defended, and so
he has sent the Order here to bolster the defences.”
“But there is only
one way to Pyrrha’s interior,” Balder replied, “and invasion fleet would be
forced to pass through a heavily defended bottleneck in order to land.”
“That is true, but a
strong enough fleet could do it, especially with the weapons the Strenians now
employ, horrid, evil things that have been improved upon every day since they
first shattered the walls of Vastinopolis.”
Of course Balder knew
all about the Strenians being here, he just hadn’t known at the time that they
were soldiers of Strenia, but what he still couldn’t figure out was why even a
warlike nation such as theirs would want him dead. He had never even been to
the accursed place.
He thanked the Owl
Lycan for his help and shuffled off into the crowd, there was obviously something
far more serious going on in the world than he had first considered. Not that
the fact made him feel any better about his own situation, an entire country
had declared war on him.
It didn’t take long
for the crowds to resume their drunken reverie after the Paladins had passed,
as with most things respect only ever really extended as far as earshot.
When the surrounding
noise was sufficient to drown his voice after more than a few feet Multhazzar
spoke from the backpack, “It’s amazing how the people you talk to seem to be
frightfully well informed. But perhaps that is because I am forced to use you
as my basis for comparison. And you are an idiot.”
“I told you that I
had a natural affinity for shadow magic,” Balder spoke and ignored the insult,
“it’s mostly mental stuff, I can sort of read who might be off the most use to
me, it’s like an instinct.”
“I’m just pointing
out that it is a tad convenient, is all.”
“Well I tell you
what, Imp,” Balder said jovially as he skipped around a fellow who was discussing
his finances with a raven-haired beauty, “the next time we need to find
something out I’ll just ask the first person who looks like they’ll reply
‘dunno’. Maybe they’ll turn around and shock us with some useful knowledge,
wouldn’t that be a fun experiment?”
“You could try asking
one where we might find a good place to stay tonight.”
“I’d rather not,”
Balder replied as he shrunk suddenly back into the shadows of an alleyway
between a burlesque and a restaurant, “that man across the street with the
short black hair, the guy in the dirty cloak. That’s the Strenian captain who
was with Abraxus in Vinalia.”
“It couldn’t be,”
Multhazzar peered over Balder’s shoulder, “it’s a week’s ride from Vinalia to
Prosperina, you said so yourself.”
“Well they must have
gotten down somehow,” he started down the alley, first at a quiet pace but very
soon he was running, “they must have portals or something.”
Multhazzar doubted
that idea, wormholes were incredibly difficult to create even by the best
mages, it took skill and energy far greater than even the most powerful
summons. Heck even the majority of demons were incapable of creating a wormhole
large enough to transport anything but their own essence. Of course there were
certain mana stones, spatial thaumatite they called it or something like that,
stones that could be bound with the essence of a location so that even a
non-mage could teleport back to the spot. But even with such stones they would
require a high level terramancer to draw forth the spatial essence.
The thoughts going
through the demon’s head were far beyond Balder’s education, and probably a
good thing too because it allowed the apprentice to approach the problem from a
more practical level, and he had hit upon the answer.
“The elevator,” he
said between breathes as he ducked from one alley to the next, “the
construction crews had cranes at the top to lower the crew in boxes to the work
area. They must have had the crew lower them all the way down.”
“Huh,” Multhazzar
sounded like he might finally have been impressed, “so IQ means more to you
than just letters after all.”
Balder stopped and
leaned back against the alley wall which in turn resulted in a muffled curse
from the demon still secreted in the backpack. The cold, damp stone against the
back of his head sent chills down his spine, though it could just as easily
have been the adrenaline having that effect on him. This was the grimy
underworld beneath the whitewashed façade of the merchant city, hidden there
buried amongst the discarded trash and detritus lay the shivering and largely
ignored vagrant population of Prosperina. Drink, gambling and taxation had cost
many a man his home and livelihood in this city, and usually the three went
hand in hand.
It was a terrible
state to be in and Balder genuinely pitied these poor souls huddled around
their small fires or wrapped in waste paper, you never saw people in this
condition in Vinalia, the folk in the mountains looked out for one another.
This sense of community was one of the things he feared that the village would
lose when the elevator was completed, and that chilled him more than the cold
stone ever could.
He could do nothing
for these people here now, he knew that there was nothing that he could do and
still felt no better for knowing it. The feeling was the same kind of impotent
guilt that healthy people feel when they meet a crippled person, which is why
most people avoid the handicapped, that guilt is a horrible and somewhat unjust
feeling.
He remembered that he
had packed a week’s supply of waybread for coming down the rim wall, and most
of it hadn’t been need thanks to his necessary shortcut. Approaching the
nearest group, three desolate souls huddled around the most pathetic fire they
looked up at Balder with withered, hollow eyes that tried to blank out the
reality of their world, he gave them all of his waybread and most of his water.
It wasn’t much but at least it felt right, it felt like he had at least tried
to do something that might make their world better if even only a little while.
“How fantastically
altruistic,” Multhazzar hissed from within the backpack, “if you’re quite done
with your little humanitarian mission saving those who can save themselves
could you perhaps get back to the task of saving you whilst we still can?”
Saying nothing Balder
slipped silently through the darkness and the stench of decay, his feet sliding
in random puddles of grime or tripping over unseen bags of waste. This city was
badly in need of redevelopment or at the very least sanitation, over the last
decade things had slipped further and further into disrepair as the Pyrrhan
government grew more corrupt and apathetic.
Beneath the smell of
waste he could just about make out another scent, the rich tang of salt air and
seaweed, the harbour was only a corner or two away and then all that he had to
do was pick a boat.
And there it was, he
rounded the last corner and saw beyond the dark walls the glare of the lanterns
along the crowded harbour promenade and the packed quay. Beyond that the vast
darkness of the Crater Lake, and on the opposite shore the chasm known as the
Pillars of Ares which opened out to the expanse of the Gaean Ocean.
Standing at the edge
of the alleyway shrouded in the last of the darkness Balder surveyed the hustle
and bustle along the promenade. There were blocks of warehouses lining the
shore and because no Pyrrhan would ever pass up the chance to make a quick buck
there were also numerous inns, taverns and brothels, plus for some reason the
public library. This area was the real hive of activity in Prosperina, the one
place that even in the darkest hours of the morning commerce never ceased,
there were always ships coming and going, always cargo to be unloaded and deals
to be made.
In the light Balder
saw a crane swing overhead and lower one final crate onto a barge that already
say dangerously low in the water. At first he wondered how that thing would
ever survive an ocean journey when a light breeze would whip up waves large
enough to capsize it and make the ocean floor that bit more valuable. An empty
barge silently came alongside as the first slowly backed out, as it moved away
from the harbour Balder saw a multitude of small vortices travelling along the
hull, the water was being shifted by a piece of thaumatite charged with water
mana.
Further out in the
lake a shadow sat imposingly on the water and as he allowed his eyes to follow
it he realised that this was a vessel sitting beyond the harborage, a monster
of a thing so large that it could come no closer. That was were the barges were
coming to and from, this leviathan that boggled the sense and defied all logic.
How could a monster that size plough through the waters?
Thaumatite, whilst
allowing laymen to control magic to an extent held only a limited charge and to
shift a super freighter of such magnitude half of their cargo space at least would
need to be taken up with stones just to reach Midas. It seemed an incredibly
inefficient way to move cargo.
The second barge was
moored and Balder saw a crew of dark skinned men working on deck, well that
explained something at least, the Noob city of Solczar was the largest merchant
city in the world, the Nu Combine had been built upon their trading empire.
When it came to shifting merchandise the Noobs were inventive in ways that
would put certain historical Leonardos to shame, and they had done it without
having to blackmail any failing ancient empires.
“I think that I’ve
just spotted our way out of here,” Balder whispered to the backpack, “if we can
get onto one of those barges we could hitch a ride on that super freighter out
there.”
“Yeah, a six foot
tall, blond white guy,” Multhazzar said with mock enthusiasm, “I’m sure that
you will be totally inconspicuous amongst the people of Nu. Great idea, you
just have to work on your tan.”
“I don’t intend to
stowaway,” he replied as he scanned the nearby crowds, “I intend to ask for
help, I’ll buy passage if need be.”
“And do you really
think that going to Nu will keep you safe?”
“No, but if you have
any better ideas I am open to suggestion,” there was a hint of anger in his
voice, “seriously. You were the one who was sent to get me out of here, if you
have a better plan I’m happy to give it a shot.”
There was silence
from his backpack and then Balder knew that he had struck a chord.
When the demon
finally spoke his tone was one of resignation, “I’m sorry. You’re right, I went
to your house and told you what I was ordered to and since then you have done
all of the work. I know that I have been underperforming, believe me I am well
aware of the fact and it is frustrating as hell, and the simple truth is that I
do not know why I have been sent here. I’m only an imp after all, my job is to
destroy things, I can’t even do any of that transmogrification or mind-mess
stuff that djinn can and our species are separated only by two Words. I don’t
know how to save you.”
“Maybe you aren’t
meant to,” Balder mused as he slipped forward into the light, “maybe you are
here because you know more about the world than I do, after all, I’ve lived in
a quiet mountain town all of my life.”
Before Multhazzar
could respond a shadow leapt from the edge of the darkness grabbed Balder,
bodily lifting him back into the shadows and pressing him back against the
wall.
A pair of glowing
spheres that could have been eyes stared back at him, they seeped a deep purple
mist that drifted skywards, the face was shrouded in a grey cloak and further
inspection showed all flesh to be hidden. The figure was the same height as
Balder but far more powerful than a man should rightfully be, when he spoke his
voice was a damaged rasp and the words almost seemed to insinuate themselves
into existence rather than be spoken.
“Are you bloody
stupid or something?” There was a definite malevolence in that voice, “You can
see in shadow so why don’t you try doing that before exposing yourself, you
damned fool!”
Balder struggled in
the figure’s iron grip and felt an anger building inside him as he flailed in
vain to break free.
“Cease your infirm
scuffling,” the figure commanded, “I am not going to harm you, and the last
thing that either of us needs right now is for you to draw any unwanted
attention. Calm down and relax your mind, let the shadow flow into you and I
think that you’ll see things a little more clearly.”
The struggling ceased
but the figure still held tight, Balder calmed himself with deep, steady
breaths and allowed his mind to open out to whatever it was that he had always
felt trying to get in.
Colour drained from
the world and the people within it became as little more than two-dimensional
cut outs, the lake glowed white as if filled with some luminescent creatures
and the sky became a swirling monochrome vortex.
And suddenly here in
this toneless landscape there hovered in glowing orange a creature like a
squid, a ring of eyes surrounded its body and its tentacles reached out in all
directions. It was feeling everyone who came within its mammoth reach whilst
the body rotated slowly in the air, Balder watched as the tentacles wrapped
around people, gripping their 2-D chests, caressing their faces and
frighteningly nobody seemed to notice.
“A pitseer hydra,”
the shrouded figure said, “they only exist as energy, unless they choose to
manifest their touch cannot be felt. They absorb holy mana as sustenance and as
a result show up exceptionally brightly on the shadow spectrum. There’s a
couple of dozen of them up and down the dock, and I know that you can guess who
they are looking for.”
“I’ve never seen
anything like that,” Balder couldn’t take his eyes off the monstrous being, the
vile tendrils reaching out and grasping all who came by, it was more than an abomination,
it was a violation.”
“There are far
stranger things than that in the world,” the shrouded figure released the young
man, “and Multhazzar, I know you’re in there. You were supposed to be keeping
an eye out for things like that.”
A small head with
over-exaggerated horns poked out from under the flap of the backpack, “Daryim,
I’m sorry. I, I didn’t know what to do, I’m not cut out for this kind of-”
“Stop babbling,” the
one who had been identified as Daryim said, “I told you to get him on the move
and help out whenever you can, I’m not expecting you to perform any miracles. I
know fine well that it is Balder who will have to do most of the work, it’s his
life we’re talking about.”
“Can you stop talking
about me like I’m not here, please?” Balder brought the focus of attention back
to him once more, “I’d like somebody to talk to me and explain exactly what in
the Underrealm is going on.”
“I would have thought
that much was blatantly obvious,” Daryim rasped, “the Strenians are trying to
kill you.”
“But why me?”
“Don’t take it too
personally, they’re determined to wipe out all of the Vastians, not just you.”
Balder stared at the
glowing squid thing, “But I’m not a Vastian.”
“Did it never seem
odd to you that all other Pyrrhans seem to have dark hair, green eyes and few
seem to be taller than five foot eight? Oh, and that you have a natural
affinity for magic?”
The monotone world of
two dimensions continued to flow by, another pitseer hydra became visible
briefly further down the dock, it was lower towards the ground and moving
amongst the cut-out figures, ducking in and out of narrow spaces along the
wharf. The nearby hydra was no longer groping around the crowd but had pulled
its tentacles into the air and moved as if swimming down the promenade, and it
was moving directly towards those in the alley.
“Um, I think that
squid thing has spotted us.”
The air moved in the
darkness of the alley, a cool breeze grew to a fierce wind and in the realm of
shadow Balder saw a vortex of blue light form seven or eight feet off the
ground. Lightning crackled within the glowing whirlpool and mists of local
ether were dragged over the event horizon and drawn away.
People were at the
head of the alley, in two dimensions they were ludicrous looking as they
pointed and stared, above and behind them the hydra picked up pace and was
joined by another glowing beast.
Daryim grabbed
Balder’s clothes just below the neckline and spun the young man towards the
vortex, with inhuman strength he held him up towards the maelstrom. Balder
screamed and fought as some unseen current caught his legs and pulled him up
into the vortex, the only thing anchoring him here was the unshakeable grip of
the shrouded man.
“I am sorry,” the
voice rasped from behind the grey bindings, “but this is the way your story
must continue.”
And with that Daryim
released his grip.
Balder felt himself
dragged inexplicably across the threshold, light washed over him and he had the
vague sensation of being stretched to infinity, sight and sound became
meaningless and became one.
In one moment he felt
himself become everything that didn’t exist in the world.
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