Chapter Six
On The Road Between
Shortly after waking the next morning, Stockholm showed the sleepy-eyed mages their next destination on the map he’d been given by Lenos, and both Timothy and Hina cringed a little. Neither wanted anything to do with Arcade, especially when combined with the possibility of facing off with something as nasty as the hound-beast, which had melted away completely in the night, leaving only its strange metal casing. Stockholm had gone to the casing earlier in the morning, and using his Fist of the Breaker, had removed a sizable quantity of the material. This he stuffed in a second bag, previously rolled up in his standard bag. The second bag now weighed a good seventy pounds, and this he just tied to the bottom of his usual bag.
After some light breakfast of rations and a grouping of Haste spells from Hina, the company took off eastward, passing through the Tiverski territory on the way. Stockholm spared a brief glance at their cottage in his animus form, and then he streaked ahead of the mages astride their mounts, continuing onward east. Much of the day passed in quiet travel, the trio occasionally passing by other bands of adventurers and declining offers of sales by traveling merchants.
When early evening came on, they managed to locate a roadside hotel near the village of Kunup, a small farming community in the northwestern plains. The sagely old Human running the establishment rented them two rooms, one for the Red Tribesman and one for the mages, and he parted from them with a word of warning. “Keep your guard up at all times, but otherwise, rest up and relax. I’ll meet you in the attached diner for a nice warm meal in about an hour.”
“What’ll you be doing in the meantime,” asked Hina.
“Hmph, I’m taking a friggin’ bath,” remarked the Red Tribesman, holding up an arm and wafting his hand under his pit at Hina. She faked a goodly gagging fit, and he said, “You see? Bad enough to choke a person! I’d advise you both get in the shower too, because you’re not doing that much better,” he commented, meaning exactly that. He headed up to the second floor for his room, while Hina and Timothy headed down the east wing hallway on the first floor to their room.
Tim opened the door on a humble little room with only one lycanthrope-sized bed. “Um, there’s only one bed,” he said, feeling a streak of blood rush to his cheeks.
“Yeah, and,” was Hina’s reply. She began stripping off her brigandine vest and clothes, and Tim swiftly turned his back on her. “I’m gonna hit the shower,” she said behind him, and Tim’s otherwise iron resolve started slipping away quite entirely. “You can join me, but don’t get any ideas,” she said, a coy smile playing across her lips unseen.
“No, um, that’s quite all right,” Tim said, his voice high and squeaking. “I’ll just, um, wait out here,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and keeping his eyes averted from her naked form. She made a little harumphing sound, and proceeded into the attached bathroom for a much needed shower. Tim tried not to think too hard about her, standing under the faucet, her body clean and moist. No, he thought, crunching his eyes shut and banishing the mental picture from his mind’s eye. “Must control myself,” he whispered to the four walls.
A few minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “Don’t worry, there’s a couple more towels,” she said. He thanked her, and darted off into the bathroom, still filled with raw nerves and sexual tension. Hina chuckled lightly to herself, unable to control her own teasing of the poor young man. She enjoyed his company, and may even have slept with him if he'd wanted. If he didn’t feel ready, however, she would wait. She had a feeling that she’d be spending many weeks, or even months, in his company.
As she dressed, another of those curious notions sank into her mind. He always splits up from Timothy and I, she thought, referring mentally to Ignatious Stockholm. He’s always keeping himself at arm’s length. Why is that, she wondered. She slipped on a fresh blouse, then her brigandine vest, and began seriously toweling her damp hair. After drying her head completely, she walked over to one of the dressers for the hotel’s guests, and looked in the waist-length mirror atop the surface. Wow, she thought, I look about five years older already. There were hardened frown lines at the corners of her mouth, and her usually reserved, neutral expression had a hard edge to it, especially in her own eyes. She had only been gone from home for less than a week, and already she had been hardened by the outside world.
“What do you think, mom and dad,” she said to the mirror. “Will you recognize me when I come home? If I come home? Or will you wonder who I am, and what I’ve done with your aimless daughter? Hmph,” she said, turning away from the mirror. “Rubbish,” she whispered to no one in particular. She knocked on the bathroom door, and Tim called out her name in question. “Yes, it’s me,” she said. “I’m going to head down to the hotel diner. I’ll catch up with you there,” she called in.
Yet before she left the room entirely, she wanted to brighten her mood out of the dreary thoughts of her parents. She strode confidently into the bathroom, approached the toilet, and resolutely flushed it. Tim yelped immediately in pain, taken off guard by the sudden jet of scalding hot water. He’d never had the benefit of someone doing this to him, apparently, and Hina giggled to herself all the way down to the diner.
Stockholm stood in astral form before Lenos and Oun, in the administrative office of the former rather than the latter. Lenos’s place of Heavenly business was furnished rather lavishly with assorted couches, throw pillows, and even a full sized bed near the wide desk. Lenos was seated at his desk, while Oun lounged in a plush recliner next to it, his feet up and a look on his face that was less strained than usual.
“Things appear to be moving along quite nicely,” commented Oun, hitting the lever on the side of the recliner and bringing his feet down.
“They could be going worse, they could be going better,” Stockholm said, keeping his tone level and even. “That hound beast was something else though, I’ll tell you,” he said. “What was that stuff it was surrounded in? Some sort of flexible metal is what it appears to be.”
“The material is called ebony,” said Oun directly in a schoolteacher’s tone. “It is present in your Mortal Plane, though not in such vast quantities. A rare material to be sure. Now, we’ve been watching your progress, and we are duly impressed,” said Oun, to which Lenos nodded his head in agreement.
“Enough to maybe give me another of my powers back? Because I have one in mind,” said Stockholm. Oun exchanged a look with Lenos, and both gods nodded.
“We had agreed upon that course of action, yes. Dependant, of course, upon which power you wish to be granted once again,” warned Lenos. “There are many that you had just better forget about for now.”
“Not a problem,” said Stockholm, his manner militant and accepting. He’d sought an audience for precisely this request, and he decided that being a good boy and playing up his loyalty to the gods would work in his favor. This went doubly for the power he wished to regain, for on the surface, it wasn’t exactly a devastating power. “I request the return of my Eye of Divination.” A short silence ensued, wherein both Greater Gods looked to one another, clearly baffled by the request.
“Um, sure thing,” said Lenos, beckoning him forward. Lenos waved his hand over Stockholm’s face, and another mark blazed on the side of his snout, a strange, small tattoo of a third eye. “The Eye of Divination is yours once again. Unfortunately, none of us sees very much the use of this power,” said Lenos. “It only reveals to you how to proceed along your path, after all.”
“It’ll come in handy,” Stockholm said, barking harsh laughter in his mind. The Eye of Divination did that, that much was true. If ever he lost his way in the world, it would show to him the path back out of his situation or surroundings. However, with careful manipulation of the Eye of Divination, he could also identify a weak point on an opponent, or identify what form of magic or attack would deal it the most crippling blow. The other gods had apparently only seen fit to discover its primary purpose, and then leave it at that.
Who ever said the gods were infallible?
Timothy got out of the shower and shaved, using the bathroom mirror to ensure that he didn’t cut himself. The task completed quickly, he looked into the mirror long and hard, staring into the depths of his own eyes. Did the Vandross legacy reside there, buried somewhere deep inside? Was he destined to turn on his allies, Stockholm and Hina, and destroy them in a surge of hellfire and demented magic?
“No,” he growled at the man in the mirror. “I will not do that,” he said adamantly, slapping one hand down on the sink.
And why not, a phantom voice asked him, a phantom he knew well from his night terrors. The voice he imagined his father, Richard Vandross, had used to command his vast armies of Greenskins and demons. I did! And so did my father before me! The Vandross family line has ever been lurking in the shadows, and you shall too!
“No I will not,” Timothy roared, punching the mirror and shattering it into a hundred shards. A pair of the pieces remained embedded in his knuckles as he held his fist to the solid wood backing of the mirror, and his entire body trembled despite the warmth of the room. He plucked the pieces from his hand, tossing them to the floor with the rest. “Armego Praxia,” he muttered, waving his bloody hand down to the mirror shards, which levitated up and reformed into the shape of the mirror, solidifying a moment later. The center of the mirror was now tinted with a bloody glare, and he snarled at the reflection of himself. “I will not,” he rasped at the man in the mirror, who appeared to have aged twenty years in a few seconds.
He finished dressing and headed down to the diner.
The trio sat in humble silence as they ate, Hina apparently in good cheer, Timothy seeming in a neutral sort of mood, and Stockholm feeling as light as a feather. He’d sneaked away from his meeting with the gods with a greater power than they knew. Halfway through the meal, however, Timothy asked about the new brand on his snout.
“I have several such markings about my body,” Stockholm explained. “Sometimes some of them are simply more visible than others,” he said, giving them a half-truth to swallow along with their meal, which they were ravishing as he spoke. They both nodded and accepted his explanation.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I miss my mother’s cooking,” Hina said through half a mouthful of meatloaf. “I always had a good, well prepared breakfast and dinner, every day. I traded it in for rations and whatever animals we can bag on the road,” she joked, shaking her head and grinning. “What was I thinking?”
“Probably the same thing I was,” Tim replied quickly, adding to the air of joviality at last. “’Hey, I got no real world experience. I know! I’ll head to Desanadron and hook up with a Werewolf and work for the gods! That’s good experience!’ Kind of foolish of us, huh?”
“You said it,” Hina replied, butting shoulders with Tim. She pointed a fork loaded with mashed potatoes at Stockholm. “And by the way, what’s your deal? You claim to be a servant of the gods, right?”
“Yeah,” Stockholm said, a sinking feeling settling into his stomach like a weight on a fishing line. He didn’t like where this was heading, once again. “What of it?”
“Well, they gave you this map of yours, right? The one with the red ‘X’s on it?” Stockholm shoveled food into his mouth, and nodded, chewing slowly to delay the questions. It didn’t work very well, as Hina just continued on, asking another yes or no question. “They talk to you sometimes, right?” Nod. “Any chance we can talk to them?” Left to right shake of the head. “We can’t?” Left to right shake of the head. Damn it woman, he thought, leave me alone! “Why can you talk to them but we can’t?”
Stockholm floundered mentally for a reply, and Timothy stepped in to save his bacon. “Sometimes we should just accept things as they are,” he said, his eyes unfocused and glossy. Thinking about his father most likely, Stockholm thought. Regardless of why Tim interceded, he’d have to remember to thank the boy later. “Blind faith sort of thing, you know?”
“Here here,” Stockholm said, raising his mug of ale and quaffing a large quantity. Hina gave Tim an appraising eyeball, and continued with her meal. They finished eating peacefully enough, and then they separated once again, Stockholm to his chambers and Tim and Hina to theirs. On the way past the check in desk, Tim asked for a deck of playing cards, and the old innkeeper smiled, handing him a fresh deck.
“No charge, young sir,” he said. Timothy thanked him, and headed back to the room with Hina close behind. They played a few hands of rummy, and then Hina decided quite abruptly that she was going to take a short stroll outside. Tim offered to go with her, and she gladly accepted. They walked arm in arm around a wide perimeter circling the hotel, and they enjoyed each other’s company without word or complaint. This worked just fine for both mages; neither was in a very talkative mood.
Hina’s thoughts kept returning to her mother and father, both probably immensely worried about her well being. They both likely expected that she was still in Desanadron, but neither would have any idea that she’d done battle with strange creatures from other worlds. Nor could they imagine how dangerous both encounters had been, with the insect creatures and the canine beast.
For Timothy, his inner turmoil turned further and further from his crisis of family identity and more toward the realm of the unknown. He didn’t know anything about the creatures they would be facing in the days and weeks to come. There could be a copious variety, or he could find himself engaged with more of the same. However, he assumed from what he’d seen before that there would be a whole new form of adversary to deal with for each rift in reality’s fabric.
Neither mage thought or talked much about their plans for the future, however. For them, the future lay far ahead and wide open.
During the next day’s travels, when the group took a break for a quick lunch of leftovers from the hotel the day before, Stockholm told them what he’d remembered the night before, just before going to bed. “There’s going to be a militant group of Humans at the next rift. They’re heavily armed with mecha weaponry, and they’re most likely highly trained. They have an autocart created solely for combat known as a tank, and they’ll probably try to use it to lethal affect.”
“If they’re Humans, shouldn’t we try reasoning with them before fighting with them,” Hina asked.
“Reasoning doesn’t work too well with military types,” Timothy interjected, a sour expression on his face. His thoughts had turned once again toward his father’s tyrannical campaign to overtake the lands of Tamalaria. “They tend to strike first and ask questions of the corpses.”
“I could hardly have put it better myself,” said Stockholm. “However, they are just Humans, after all, and they come from a world where people like you and I simply don’t exist. At least, not openly. Elves in their world, I’ve been informed, aren’t true blooded Elves; they’re Humans with Elven heritage, and even they mostly keep themselves in hiding. And my people, well, I understand that Werewolves in the world these Humans are from are nothing more than bloodthirsty savages who remain in humanoid form most of the time, changing into their bestial state only a few nights out of the month.”
“Weird,” said Hina, trying to imagine such a warped reality.
“I know,” groused Stockholm. “And worst of all, they mostly feed on Humans. The gods first put the Werewolf Race on the planet to protect the humanoids, not destroy them. At least, that’s my understanding,” he added hastily. That may have been the absolute truth, but it didn’t mean he had to let on that he had ancient knowledge to the mages. The trio packed up the few items they’d dragged out for lunch, and then started off again on the trail, heading east as fast as the horses and Hina’s Haste spells would allow.
During the late afternoon and evening their pace slowed as they encountered poor weather, a strong wind coming out of the northeast at them, dragging storm clouds and heavy rain with it. Bogged down in the torrent and with the dirt roads quickly turning to pasty muck, they removed themselves from the road and pitched their tents, Stockholm in his own and Timothy and Hina sharing one. They kept the tents close together so that they might try to converse some over the noise of the downpour, but even with the tents only a foot apart, their voices were quickly drowned out. They would have to wait out this poor night in relative silence.
Each took a three-hour shift at watch, standing out in the miserable conditions throughout the night. When Hina’s shift came to an end, the sun started to poke through the morning skies, and the rainfall finally came to an end just before she awakened Timothy and Stockholm. With the ground still a mess for travel, they made only minimal progress, as Hina didn’t cast a Haste spell on the horses or Stockholm. If they ran too fast through the treacherous mud, they might slip and break a leg. With a solid three days’ travel before the nearest town east, such an accident could prove daunting to overcome.
Though the rain had stopped for the entire day, Stockholm still cautioned the next morning against using the Haste spells to increase their progress. “The ground is still not solid enough to risk running the mounts too hard,” he explained. “We’ll just have to tack another day of minimal progress onto our total,” he said, and the subject was closed. A day of uneventful travel met them, and once more they ate only rations in order to get an extra bit of sleep for the night.
When the next day brought them fair weather once again, they took full advantage, Hina using her Haste spell to full effect. The trio dashed eastward at an almost reckless speed, but they took care not to collide with anything or anyone too solid on their way. In the late afternoon, however, Stockholm brought them to a halt at the edge of a small wooded area, through which their trail had led them. The woods stretched and widened out to a proper woods to the north, but here the trees only stretched perhaps one hundred yards from west to east.
At the eastern edge of this wooded section of the plains, Stockholm took his bestial form and slipped off of the path and into the woods themselves, Hina and Tim only a few seconds behind him. He looked back to them, held a single finger up before his lips, and shifted back down into his animus form, slinking east to the edge of the woods as stealthily as any smaller canine might. While stealth did not befit Timothy or Hina, both had lived in woodlands all their lives (or at least most of their lives) and both managed to follow the big red wolf without making too much noise.
When they spotted finally what Stockholm had noticed on the other side of the woods, both felt a worm of perplexity run through their minds. What they saw, about another one hundred yards from the eastern edge of the woods, was a large caravan of wagons rounded into a circle. There were men and women of various Races visible on the outer perimeter of the wagon circle, and most seemed rather bright and friendly with one another. Timothy had time to wonder why Stockholm was being so cautious before the Red Tribesman, in animus form, turned back to them to whisper an explanation.
“They are Jurians, my friends,” Stockholm whispered from his snout. “And they are flying flags with colors and a crest I do not recognize,” he said, waiting for some sort of realization to dawn in their eyes. When none came and they continued to look at him expectantly, he let out an exasperated sigh. Did these mages know nothing beyond their precious Elven Kingdom? He shook his shaggy head sadly, and wished for a moment he’d remained in his bestial state so he could at least rub his temples. “Jurians are nomadic bands of men and women loosely assembled around a common goal or ethos. They typically spawn from one smaller group of freelance adventurers, and the leader of the first group remains the leader for all that join. When they become a sizable enough group, they purchase or craft their own wagons for travel.
“The Jurian group at this point will take a group name, and it is almost always based on the first leader’s last name. In the event the leader dies, a new leader is chosen, but the group title remains, as does its colors and crest.”
“Sort of like an unofficial family,” offered Tim. “A traveling Guild if you will.”
“Precisely,” said Stockholm, puffing his chest out a little. Good thinking, Tim, he thought. “Except whereas organized Guilds, on and off the public record, usually have a unifying goal of some sort, offering specific services, Jurians do not. They will usually take work as escorts and bodyguards for periods of time, but for the most part they go from town to town, city to city, and try to sell the things they find along their way or scavenge from old battlefields. Some of the Jurian bands resort to being highwaymen when times are tight, or mercenaries, and neither would bode well for us right now,” he said, looking away from the mages and back to the Jurian band.
“You’ve seen a lot of these Jurians in Desanadron,” Hina asked in a harsh whisper.
“Oh gods yes,” Stockholm replied. “There’s about fifteen such bands, and each has their own title. Each band flies crests and colors on flags from atop their wagons, and I have come to know most of them. However,” he said, peering with his inferior eyesight as hard as he could toward the flags. “I can only make out the colors, and I don’t recognize the pairing of green and white on any known band. What does their crest look like,” he asked, irritated that he had to depend upon the mages for something so simple.
Hina used a quick Farseeing spell, and scoped her vision in on the flags that fluttered over the wagons circled in the fields to the east. She caught sight of a flag with a symbol upon it after a moment, and took a long, hard look at it. “It’s a crow with a top hat on it, from the look of it. Kind of like a town crier’s illustration strip,” she said, cutting off the spell. Stockholm cycled through his mental catalogue, trying to come up with something that at least sounded familiar. However, he couldn’t think of any Jurian band that used a crest of a crow in a top hat.
“I’m afraid I don’t know that particular crest,” he said, relying now on his sensitive nose to try to at least identify what Races were among the band’s members. “There are Humans, Minotaurs, a few Jafts, and what I believe I can scent is a Lizardman or two. Quite an odd grouping if you ask me,” he said. “Historically speaking, Minotaurs and Lizardmen have never got on very well, and neither have Minotaurs and Jafts.”
“Well, three of those four are very war-like Races,” said Hina. “Humans aren’t exactly notorious for being great warriors like the others.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Tim with a touch of regret in his voice. Had his own father not been a grand, mad conqueror? And had he not been Human? Until near the very end, yes, he had been. “So, are we going to try to go around them, or are we going to pass by and hope they aren’t hitting tight times?”
“I seriously doubt we can do worse passing by them than going around them,” said Hina suddenly, her eyes dimming slightly as she thought back on her books on geography and the wildlife of the realm of Tamalaria. “This is the southern jut of the Schwartzvold, the Black Woods, am I right?” Stockholm nodded, not looking back at her. “If we go too far south, we’ll run into the outskirts of the Allenian Hills,” she said, thinking about that particular region, and all of the dangers it entailed. Chief among those dangers was being caught in the middle of the ancient struggle between the Khan and Simpa clans that each fought for supremacy of the region. There were other dangers, of course, but they were fewer and farther between. “If we go too far north, we run the risk of encountering more than a few demons or wild Troke that are known to inhabit the Schwartzvold.”
“Oh,” said Tim, feeling a little out of his element and a little dim. His nervous habit of rubbing his head reared up, but he minimized his movements so as not to be spotted by any of the Jurians on the outer perimeter of the wagon circle. Watching them going on about their business, he recognized them for what they were- guards. The majority of the Jurian band was within the wagon circle, and could all be called out by the guards in only a few seconds’ time. He’d heard of such people, but he’d heard them referred to as Wayfarers, people who simply traveled for the sake of the nomad’s lifestyle. “Have you been out this way before, Hina? You seem to know the area well enough.”
“Never been here in my life,” she whispered back, stunning Timothy. She gave him a wry smile, and said, “I’m a bit of a bookworm back home, actually. I’ve got a bunch of geography, history and guide books in my parents’ house. Most of them are recent editions, and they’re pretty up to date. Sorry to give you the wrong impression, Tim.”
“No, no,” he said, waving a hand casually. “Any knowledge is good to have, read from a book or learned through experience. So, we’d be better off dealing with the Jurians then, if it comes to that?” This question he directed at Stockholm, who surely had the experience to go with Hina’s researched information.
“You’d normally think so,” Stockholm said. “However, Jurians have been known to keep a few well-trained fighters in their ranks, and even mages on occasion. Don’t make any assumptions, but yes, I believe we would be best served passing through,” he said, shifting up into his bestial state. “Just to be safe, though, keep your mana reserves on hand for spells. It shouldn’t come to that, but just to be safe.”
They stepped out of the woods, each hoping to pass by the Jurian band without incident.
Several hours later, they were loping along at a good pace. They had not been attacked, except by aggressive sales pitches and shouts of ‘Swear you’ll not see a better deal in all the towns of the realm!’ The Jurian band had in fact been host to a great deal of elderly Minotaurs and Jafts, all too aged to give serious thought to battle of a serious nature. They offered wines and spirits, toys and games, and even rare spices that the Jurians claimed had been grown with the aid of Gaiamancy. One of the vendors had come too close with some form of greenery, and Stockholm’s eyes had teared up from the raw potency of the spice’s odor. “Get that away from me,” he muttered as he pinched off his snout, shooing the Human salesman away with his free paw.
“Rings and necklaces for your girl, young man,” one crafty-looking old Minotaur had said, putting one still-strong arm around Tim’s shoulders. He pulled Tim closer, into a conspirator’s embrace, and whispered, “She’ll stay your girl for quite some time with a tincture I keep in my wagon, too. Interested?” Tim had been forced to wriggle free of the Minotaur’s grasp like a strange bipedal worm, and he mounted his horse then and streaked away with Hina. Stockholm took his animus form, and followed immediately after, all the while with the Jurians sighing and groaning disappointedly at their backs.
Now, as afternoon faded into evening, Stockholm almost felt like laughing aloud, looking back on the incident. He almost would have preferred demons or Troke, because at least those things could be killed without much in the way of regret. Stodgy and persistent old men? Yeah, that’d probably rip apart what little positive karma he had working in his favor. The one Lizardman he’d seen had appeared to be so far along that the poor man was using a cane. Yeah, he’d thought, everybody watch out for grandpa! He’s a real menace!
This line of thought, however, led him to think about Styge, the elderly Human Illusionist who’d lost his life in an underground ruins near the Dwarven city of Traithrock. Being old, he recalled, didn’t always mean being harmless. Such assumptions could turn deadly. Still, it hadn’t turned out too bad with the Jurian band, and now they streaked along eastward, their natural speed enhanced by Hina’s magic.
The twilight glow of early evening brought them to the small village of Turinbull, a small hamlet mostly inhabited by Humans and Jafts. Hina and Timothy dismounted, and Stockholm took his bestial form. “Turinbull,” Stockholm said, looking around at the outer residences with neutral admiration. “A town made entirely of stone,” he said, commenting on the building structures. For a moment, Timothy marveled at the one and two-story structures. He could see into the center of town, where what he assumed was the town hall, a three-story affair, was also made of gray stone.
“Where did they get all this material,” Hina asked.
“There’s a quarry a little north of here,” Stockholm said, leading the way toward the local stables, so that Tim and Hina could put their horses up for the night. “In the quarry is also a nice mine, rich with iron and copper deposits. It’s where most of the townsfolk work. Turinbull is also the only township in the north-central region with a quality bookstore of its own,” Stockholm said with a twitch of a smile. “They get most of their books from Palen, to the east, where the Holburn Printing House produces books by the hundreds on a monthly basis. It’s one of the few working mecha factories.”
“So they don’t publish books by plate and hand,” Timothy asked, amazed.
“No, they don’t. If you’d like, young Timothy, we can make a special trip to Palen after dealing with the second rift,” he said, at which his eyes glimmered with wonder. Like a child being offered a trip to the candy store, Stockholm thought. They really haven’t learned much about the world, have they? At the stables, a pair of middle-aged Human women took the horses to a pair of fresh stalls, and collected four gold pieces for each horse before ministering to them.
“I hope we don’t run out of money on this little excursion,” Hina said. “I’ve only got about seventy gold pieces left, and Tim was robbed in Desanadron,” she said, putting her arm around the half-Elf Void Mage. “Is there maybe some way we can make some extra money while we’re here?”
“Likely not,” Tim said, looking up at Stockholm. “We’re only here for the night, right?”
“Indeed,” said the Red Tribe Werewolf. “Don’t worry overly much about funds. I’ve got enough to see us through, I believe,” he said. “There is an inn near the town hall, which is the tallest building in the center of the town,” he said, pointing toward the three-story structure. “I’ll go ahead and get us a couple of rooms. You two can get your room whenever. I’m going to go ahead and turn in early,” he said, moving away and waving over his shoulder to the mages.
Timothy and Hina decided to do a little sightseeing first, and their feet inevitably brought them before the bookstore that Stockholm had mentioned before. It was a squat one-story affair, roughly three dozen yards from east end to west end. The glass windows fronting the store gave them a good look from the outside, and as they entered through the front door, a bell tinkled above them. The spicy aroma of old pages, as well as the more subtle odor of new books sitting on the various shelves gave them each a warm, welcome sensation.
Hina broke off from Timothy immediately, her eyes steering her right at the section labeled ‘reference’. Timothy, slightly less serious in his narrative endeavors, headed for a section entitled ‘mystery’. The shopkeeper, a deeply tanned Human wearing a tan tunic common to the locals, looked aloof and somewhat disinterested about his customers. Most of the business he brought in from out of town were extravagantly dressed mages from Palen, to the east. He suspected that these two were nothing more than window shoppers, like most out-of-towners.
When Hina approached his counter with an armload of four thick reference books, the clerk suddenly came a little more alive. Customers, he thought jubilantly! I haven’t had one in three days! Hina opened her drawstring pouch of coins, and looked at the shopkeeper with a bright smile. “How much for these four,” she asked.
“Well, those are some good books,” the clerk said, his mind alight with the salesmanship he’d developed over the years. “Made by hand and plates, they were,” he said, lying through his teeth. Hina’s smile melted a little, and her eyes took on the hawkish quality of a true bargain hunter.
“Really? That’s funny,” she said, her voice still light and friendly. “Because you see, our third companion, our guide if you will, informed us that a good deal of these books were made over in Palen, at the Holburn Printing House,” she said. The store owner felt something drop from his throat down into his stomach, and it felt like a small crew tossed about at sea. His hopes of a decent sale had essentially plummeted. “I imagine that, in light of this, and the fact that the Holburn imprint is stamped into the front cover of each book, I could get them at a better rate than what you’d assumed I would pay.”
“Way to go dear Hina,” Timothy whispered behind her, rummaging through the shelves for a decent title that he’d not read yet. He plucked one from a trio he had lined up as potential candidates, and added it to her pile. “And this one as well,” he said. The clerk, grumbling all the while, did a quick bit of addition on a notepad, and turned it around to face the Elven Q Mage.
“Sixteen gold altogether,” the clerk groused. Hina paid the fee, took her purchases, and handed Timothy his novel on the way out of the shop.
“It’s a handy thing we’ve got Stockholm around,” she said with a grin.
“That it is.”
Atop the town hall, Ignatious Stockholm used his Eye of Divination to search to the east. He could see a thin cord of golden light leading out of the town, eastward and slightly north. Concentrating all of his power on the Eye, the rune along his snout flared to life, and he found that the effect was most likely similar to Hina and Timothy’s Farseeing spell. His line of sight remained uninterrupted for quite a while, until it finally, after several minutes of whipping through the countryside, stopped about fifty yards from the second rift.
The militant Humans had, indeed, remained very close to the rift in Stockholm’s reality. They appeared to have established a crude, makeshift camp of operations, with multiple tents and what appeared to be several assemblages of strange mecha devices. What he would give right now to be able to make out what any of the Humans were saying! Without the ability to read lips, either, he was reduced to keeping an eye on their activities.
Strangely enough, he was able to make out the stripes and metal tags of each man and woman’s rank, for the insignia were much similar to those of the Desanadron Military Police Force’s tags. There, he thought to himself, identifying what he assumed was the leader of the militants. The man was a dark-fleshed Human in a suit of sandy, desert camouflage fatigues, and on his lapels was affixed a metal badge of a bird of some sort. A colonel, Stockholm thought accurately, though he had no real way of knowing. He’ll be in command of their numbers.
Scanning his vision slightly north, trying not to whip his line of sight too much (the Eye of Divination was a sensitive thing, much like the Farseeing spell), he located what he had seen before in Lenos’s mirror that gave him a pang of nervousness, the tank. It was a monstrous thing indeed, though smaller than the canine beast he and the mages had dealt with back west. The large circular protrusion sticking out of the top of the machine was what he assumed would be its primary weapon. He’d seen such things in his time, especially back in the Age of Mecha, the Fourth Age of Tamalaria; they were called cannons, and their dread destructive power was a thing of legend.
Bringing his Eye of Divination back to himself, Stockholm started to descend the emergency stairs down through the town hall building. How do we deal with such a thing, he wondered. “If only we had a Bishop among us,” he thought. The Bishop spell known as Mecha Crush would deal a swift, harsh blow to the entire Human encampment, disrupting the operation of all technology in a short radius. This thought, however, led to another related one right away. Did Timothy, as a Void Mage, have that spell in his repertoire? In the morning, he would have a good sit-down with the mages, and find out just what sort of magical weapons they had at their disposal.
He had a good idea that they had quite a lot between the two of them.
After getting a good night’s sleep at the little inn, the trio headed to the town of Turinbull’s only diner, Ma’s Kitchen. They were promptly seated by a bored Jaft fellow who appeared more suited to the battles and wars of his people’s olden days. He handed them each a menu, and brought out a small notepad to take their orders. Each of the trio asked for coffee and a light breakfast, and the Jaft came back a minute later with three steaming mugs. “It’ll be about ten minutes for your food,” the Jaft waiter said before shuffling away.
“That fellow seems more suited to the mines than this place,” Hina said.
“Oh, I’m sure he works there too,” said Stockholm, sipping the brackish brew. He made a nasty face, and continued on in spite of the nasty tasting coffee. “The mines don’t open up this early in the day. This is probably just a job for extra money for him. Now, I wanted to ask you two a few questions this morning before we head out,” he said, draining his mug with a shake of his head.
“Ye gods this stuff is bad,” Timothy grumbled after sampling his own brew.
“Bear in mind, Timothy dear, that they have to make it strong enough for Jafts,” Hina said. Stockholm felt a bit of a dunce for not having realized this himself. “Things like alcohol and caffeine just need to be a tad stronger for them because of their regenerative powers and bodily durability.”
“Good point,” Tim said, sipping more of his coffee. “So, what are your questions, Mr. Stockholm?”
“There’s no need to be so formal with me anymore, young Tim,” Stockholm said with a twitch of his lip, the beginnings of a smile. “You can call me Stockholm or just Stocky. I don’t care for the nickname much, but it’ll work. Now, as for my first question, do you have any Bishop spells in your arsenal Tim?”
“A couple,” Timothy replied, a little embarrassed. “I’ve got a whole host of spells that I just don’t use, too. Sort of accidental acquisitions, you understand,” he said, trying to defend his nature.
“There’s no need to be ashamed of what you are, Timothy,” the Red Tribesman said, reaching across and patting the boy on the shoulder roughly. Tim rubbed the sore spot right away, and Stockholm reminded himself that he was, after all, a few dozen times stronger than the boy, physically speaking. “But you have a few Bishop spells?” Timothy nodded silently. “Is one of them the Mecha Crush spell?”
“No, it’s not,” Tim said. “I’ve got the Repel spell, the Halamo spell, which is a healing spell, and Umbrella.”
“What does that do,” Stockholm and Hina asked in unison.
“Umbrella? It slows or stops any projectile attack coming at the person the spell is cast upon,” Timothy said. “If these people are using mecha weapons, as you said they would be, it’ll come in handy. What are those machines called again? Guns?”
“Yes, guns,” Stockholm said, thinking about the cannon on the tank. No amount of Bishop magic outside of the Mecha Crush spell would stop a cannon shell. Still, they would have to work with what they had. “Can you think of any other non-lethal spells which might help us against them?”
“Well, I’ve got the Sleep spell,” Hina offered. “But that’s more a sort of generic spell than a Q magic spell. I can also use Pausa, which slows down a target’s physical movements, though not their thought process. Do these Humans have magic of their own?”
“I think not,” said Stockholm, indicating to the waiter that he needed another cup of coffee. “Do you have any light flavored coffee,” he asked the Jaft.
“Yeah, we make a couple of pots at a time for Humans. That what you want?”
“Please,” Stockholm said, handing the mug to the Jaft. The stuff he got in return was much mellower than his previous experience. “Much better. Now, back to the militants. No, Hina, I don’t think they’ve got magic. I seriously doubt the magic of their world works anything like our world’s sorcery. Tim, you have anything that’ll help on a larger scale?”
“Not really,” he said, finishing his brackish coffee. “Most of the spells I’ve learned over time have been purely combative, though there are always different applications for various spells.”
“How so,” asked Hina, curious herself.
“Well, take these Humans, for instance. How do you think they would react if we were to use the Farseeing spell on them? It would probably disorient them quite a bit, especially if they’ve never used magic of their own back in their home world,” Timothy said. Hina nodded, and was thoroughly impressed by Tim’s line of improvisational thought. She herself wouldn’t have thought to use her magic in such a fashion, but she could see how useful such tactics would be against outsiders to their world.
“That’s what I mean,” said Stockholm. “Think of how utterly lost these men and women feel in our world. I don’t mean to harm them, if we can avoid it. But we also have to be aware that there might be other creatures hanging around, creatures that not even these militants have ever dealt with. They’re staying pretty close to the rift, I imagine. They may not know that they can return to their world through it.”
“They probably can’t see it, either,” said Timothy. “Until we had a few minutes’ exposure to the first one, we couldn’t see it either,” he said. The trio’s food was brought to the table, and they let their conversation drop for the time being. With the meal finished, Stockholm left their fee on the table, and they departed. Timothy and Hina headed to the stables, and met shortly with Stockholm at the eastern edge of town, mounted up and prepared for another day’s travel. “How many more days before we reach the rift,” Timothy asked as Hina prepared her Haste spells and Stockholm took his animus form.
“Only two or three more days of hard travel,” Stockholm said. “That’s if we remain uninterrupted. Bear in mind, though, that until we reach the rift, we’ll have to remain on our guard. The plains and hilly regions we’ll be passing through in the next day or so are often host to some of the more vicious monsters Tamalaria has to offer. Rashum are plentiful throughout the area, creatures that are hybrid blends of physical animals and spiritual beasts. They often appear to be no more harmful than your average wild animal, but they are powerful and cunning most times. Be on your guard,” he cautioned.
Thusly prepared and forewarned, the trio headed east once again.
“How dare they,” proclaimed Guirdejef, gazing down from the Heavenly Plane at Stockholm, Timothy Vandross and Hina Hinas. The Great God of portals and doorways was heavily guarded by various Lesser Gods of warfare and combat, standing in a small chamber that the Greater Gods had constructed to hold those gods who had committed great offenses. “They are attempting to undo my great works!”
“That is what we requested of them,” remarked Oun, who had taken this opportunity away from his own work to speak with Guirdejef. “The damage you have done is greater than you can imagine, Guirdejef. You know full well why you were sealed away, and why we must wait for them to finish their work before you are sealed away again. Now, let us discuss the matter of your imprisonment,” Oun said, trying to keep his tone level and calm.
“What is there to discuss? You are all jealous of my powers, that much is plain,” roared the half-mad god. He tried to reach for Oun to throttle his neck, but chains attached to his wrists prevented him from doing so. “And you are using that outcast to do your dirty work! What’s the matter, Oun,” he growled, snarling his lips into a demented smile. “Afraid of taking a mortal form of your own to do it? Or is it simply too convenient to have your precious puppy do it to ignore?” Oun, on the edge of his patience, strode forward in the cell and slapped Guirdejef as hard as he dared, which was considerably hard when one heard the echoing clap.
“An outcast he may be,” said Oun. “But he is not half as arrogant as you! Did you honestly think we would allow you to use your Heavenly powers unchecked? It is as it was before, Guirdejef! You must hold council with us if you are to create one of your portals! You’re playing with the very fabric of the Mortal Realm’s reality!”
“Hey, at least things aren’t boring with me around, right,” asked Guirdejef. Oun threw up his hands in disgust, and exited the cell. As soon as he was gone, Guirdejef looked down once again at the Mortal Plane, visible to him through the cell’s floor. He was shackled and chained, yes, and he could not create anymore portals in the realm below, true. However, he could still channel a little extra power into the remaining two rifts below, widen them or use them to draw things out of the Mortal Realm below and into some far-flung place. He would have to be cautious about it, however, for if he were to try channeling any of his power during one of Oun or Lenos’s visits to his cell, they would know what he was trying and put a quick stop to it.
But only a few moments were all he needed, and the timing would be quite close. He only had to bide his time for now, and mark the progress of the trio below. What he had in mind would certainly throw off Oun and Lenos’s plans, now wouldn’t it?
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