Book 3: Sound And Fury

  Chapter 34 A Grudge Is Just A Promise

  “The count and countess are unavailable tonight, barring some emergency.” The young runner from the palace said earnestly, while gazing around the inn compound in mystified wonder.

  “It really is crazy in here…” The lad in the livery of the countess’ own Ducklings snapped to attention and saluted, when he realized he’d spoken aloud, in addition to his obvious rubbernecking. “Excuse me, master Ward…”

  “Just Gary, kid… I’m not part of any craft guild nor ranked in any craft. I’m just the local mad witch.” He blurted out a short burst of deranged laughter, before forcibly restraining himself. “I was just mad for a while, but I’m getting my mojo back, a little at a time…”

  “Right…” The lad mumbled, as he backed away from the front door of the inn. “I’ll be reporting back now, Mast.. Err.. I have to go, sir.”

  "I need to stop leading off with that ‘mad witch’ thing…” He scolded himself, while walking off into the back lot , near the narrow, rushing cataract that separated his little spit of land from the sheer mountain faces and cliffs soaring above. Across the fast flowing river, a few hundred yards of loose boulders, glued together by a thin mortar of silt and dirt supported a few scrubby bushes and many, many jagged shards of stone, shed from the rock faces high above.

  Gary sat on a boulder on his side of the river, looking up at the cliffs and slowly darkening sky above. As the first stars appeared, an old, familiar reed flute appeared in his hands, a humble panflute of river reeds and a bit of driftwood.

  Pipes Of Stillwater, pipes/panflute, spiritual/etheric enchanted instrument, unranked. Elemental affinities: Wind, Water. Quality: Fine.

  When played in proximity to a source of etheric energy, instrument grants a bonus to player’s proficiency.

  Spells, gifts or other magical effects gain a moderate bonus to effect, area and duration when empowered through instrument.

  He’d made the little thing years before, while having a minor spat with Shai about some silly thing or other. She’d hidden all his instruments in Liam’s personal storage gift, so he couldn't cause any musical mischief.

  Naturally, he’d put a little something together on the fly, right there by the waterside, just to annoy her… only to accidentally create another minor magical artifact.

  The silly little thing gave a mild boost to the player’s musical ability, at the cost of a little Mana and could enhance gifts associated with music, water, earth or any interaction between the two elements and musical principles.

  A sweet, mellow melody began to echo among the tumbled boulders, ringing off the water and stones in a soothing yet still lively way. Jethro Tull’s classic ‘Bungle in the Jungle’ seemed fitting for the mood, his little instrument quickly warmed up and began making a subtle magic.

  A slow, bubbling and churning began on a bend in the bank, where a bit of sand and silt collected, allowing a few reeds, some moss and grass to grow.

  In a few brief moments, a small, pudgy colonel from the napoleonic era stood before him, composed of the soil sand and mud, decorated with shiny quartz pebble buttons, woven river grass braid and piping, all topped by a birch bark bicorn hat.

  “Oh, the annoying one…” Rocky mumbled in his low, stony voice. “Where is that lovely dancer? She’s much more amusing.”

  “She’s busy, pal…” Gary sighed. The spirit being was always unwilling to interact with him in general. He was never hostile or unfriendly, he just preferred to be left alone, by Gary… at all times.

  “I need a little advice on a matter of geology.”

  “You have my attention.” The little being rumbled stonily.

  “There’s a marble boulder near here… well, not really… There’s a big chunk of something that’s totally not marble near here and the magical emanations are kinda stinking up the place.”

  “Precisely as succinct as I always expect from you, Gary.” Rocky mumbled. “I’m aware of it. A few tons of dreamstuff with a hefty splash of divine magic, wrapped around a core of starstuff. This is not the whole object, but only a part and only partly in this world…” The little spirit of earth, stone and mountains concentrated for a moment and frowned his dark, silty face.

  “Yeah, never mind all that… I was wondering if you had any advice on how to move the darn thing?” The musician mumbled quickly, seeming mildly embarrassed.

  Rocky paid no heed, as usual, continuing his train of thought. “I cannot divine the object’s function, but it is definitely an intersection of the natural, mortal, divine, eldritch and profane.” He paused again and glared at Gary.

  “Why does the object depict a giant set of human male sex organs, sculpted in stone?”

  “It’s a dick and balls shaped reliquary for the corpse of a god… It was supposed to stay safe and sound on the madman’s moon, but you know me.” He chuckled weakly.

  “Yes, a short sighted, foolish abomination against the natural order, unclean in my sight and benighted by the taint of undeath. Your presence is an irritant, even at the best of times; which these are not.”

  “Ouch.” Gary grumbled. “That’s all like… true, and stuff. But man... It kinda stings when you just dump on me like that.”

  “You do seem to bring out my flintiest elements… We strike sparks, I’m afraid.” The being muttered unhappily.

  “Can’t start a fire without a few sparks, buddy.” Gary mused. “Let’s talk about that big ball-sack.”

  /

  Hermit listened to the soft, skirling melody of his brother’s pipes, playing to the mountainside as he drifted off to sleep, exhausted and his appetite finally satisfied by a huge, insectile horror that buzzed down on sixteen mismatched wings from an inaccessible rift in one of the crags. Inaccessible to humans, anyway.

  Hermit returned from sealing that rift in the void feeling very sleepy and too full to struggle against the call of slumber.

  He awoke without a jolt or any sensation, really, once again standing in that strange dream meadow, as a naked human man. With a flex of his will, he clothed himself, leaving his feet bare to savor the soft, cool grass between his toes.

  “Hello, again…” That soft, warm voice called from the trees. “Will you speak with me this night? I will depart if you wish; these are your dreams, I am simply drawn into them.”

  “Please, stay… I have questions that few can answer.” He mumbled awkwardly.

  With an audible purr of pleasure, lady Thirp stepped out from behind an aspen tree, clad in a diaphanous gown of dangerously sheer spidersilk lace and, as he could see very clearly, scanty, white lace underthings…

  “I will do my best to answer… satisfactorily.” She murmured softly.

  “My brother, the Fool… he says you are a divine being, immortal and immaterial.” The Hermit gasped out in a rush, as she stepped closer to him, so close he could feel the very human warmth of her.

  “He’s half correct.” She cooed, as she slipped her arms around him and pulled herself close. “I am a demigoddess, a divine being who has no physical form… in Gary’s world. In realms where lord Aclintherios holds sway, I am a physical entity, just a living being granted immortality through his grace and power…”

  “Umm…” He mumbled as she curled up so close he began to lose track of where he began and she ended.

  At least, that was what he told himself, when he realized he was cupping her small, pert bottom in his hand; holding her up as she climbed him for a kiss.

  “I would rather we just speak, lady Thirp…” He gasped at last, when her lips were inches from his and she was entirely in his arms, clinging like a baby sloth to its mother.

  “Oh, Web-Tangles! I’m doing it again…!” She muttered crossly, once her gown was properly back in place and also much more opaque, by the force of her Will. It was still super slinky, clinging and distracting.

  She only stood a little over four feet and was so slim as to almost seem skinny, yet her bottom and boobs were full, jiggly and delightfully, smoothly plump in all the right ways. Almost chalk pale, with silvery blonde hair, huge, dark amber eyes and bright pink lips, she drew his gaze back again and again.

  “Is that why you and others are requesting that I return to Arachnophobia?” He demanded gently. “I am to be your mate there? I think that would end very poorly for me, my lady.”

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  “Ah, so you are aware of the tragic fate of all males of my… Of our species.” She sighed.

  “It is not something I ever considered, until I met the Fool. None of our people ever considered the matter, for it has always been so. All males are simply animals, who perish, once they have completed their duty to us…” She sighed, which made her chest do some very un-spidery things that Hermit quite enjoyed.

  “Then you must see my perspective…” He replied carefully. “As delightful as you seem; I am unwilling to surrender my life at the moment.”

  “Yes, I see that… but have you seen? Have you seen our cousins all around these forests and wildlands? These local Arachneans are bound to lord Aclintherios through my connection to his grace… and to your gods of mankind, through their unique bond to the Fool.” She whispered softly, drawing closer slowly.

  “Their males are sentient beings. Moreover, they form pairbonds and live as many mammals do, caring for their offspring, living and working together…”

  Her hand caressed his chest, as he realized with a start that she was hugged up to him… and that her hand had seven fingers and a thumb.

  “Just as we will live together, when we bond. The goblin king is not the only being working to change the fate of an entire race.”

  “What are you saying?” He asked, nervously twitching and fidgeting under the intensity of her gaze.

  “Lord Aclintherios saw it in you, when you first encountered one of his faithful, so long ago, as mortals reckon it. He saw in you the potential to bring the light of reason into the males of our species at last…”

  “Wait, what?” He demanded weakly, since her hand had found its way under his shirt and was stroking his abdomen in a very soothing way.

  /

  In a quiet, far corner of the garden, in a tangled thicket of thorntrees and berry brambles, a man sat inside a circle of silk rope, strung on low wooden stanchions. The strand bore numerous decorations; dangling strips of paper, bone, horn, antler and shell, inscribed with sutras and glyphs from dozens of cultures.

  On a tree stump, covered with a thick blanket of moss and sprouting several types of mushrooms, sat a statue of a nude woman. Carved in a pale blue crystal, worked with exquisite artistry, the slim, beautiful woman seemed almost alive, captured in a twirling dance preserved in a frozen moment of time.

  The man squatted down to be on eye level with the sculpture, smiling blandly.

  “Hi there, pontiff Luce… My name’s Gary, my brothers call me the Fool. I’ll be initiating you into the subtle and rarefied delights of mortal life tonight, by stripping you of your immortality and feeding you into the Devourer of Souls… Please be patient, I’ve been cursed and crippled for a while, so I’m a little rusty.”

  Soft, sweet music slowly began to rise from the lonely clearing, far from the eyes of any other living soul, despite the busy, hectic and crowded inn yard, just a few steps away.

  Blue-jean baby

  L.A. lady

  Seamstress for the band…

  ‘Tiny Dancer’ was an obvious choice, but too pretty and perfect to be anything but exactly right. The key change after the bridge really hit the moment hard, dragging something out into the moonlight.

  “Oh, you are beautiful…” He sighed at the softly shimmering field of luminous blue vapor, scattered with flashing, sparkling lights like tiny fireflies on a foggy meadow.

  “That won’t save you, I’m afraid… But you can go to your next existence knowing that you weren't entirely loathsome.” He sighed thoughtfully for a moment.

  “Even the shiny green bottleflies on a clump of crap can be colorful and pretty, from a certain perspective.”

  He watched the flashing lights and drifting cloud for a few silent moments, a smile of disappointment on his face.

  “Threats, promises of my utter destruction, vengeance on my progeny for a thousand generations… All pretty standard stuff, really.” He sighed and stood up.

  “I have a long standing grudge with you clowns: I swore to grind each and every one of you under my heel and laugh all the while.” He muttered quietly into the shrinking cloud of vapor.

  “Toodles, Luce.”

  He picked up the statue and smiled. “It really is lovely…”

  “Gary, quit goofing off and come inside… Shai made cocoa just how you like, with cinnamon, nutmeg and chili.” Becky called from the back porch, her voice cutting through, as it always did.

  “I wasn’t goofing off… I do serious things sometimes too!” He protested, while he made his way through the tangled briars and vines to the back door. “Ok, not really, but sometimes I think about doing serious stuff…”

  Gary kept comically mumbling under his breath about: “No respect” and “Take my wife… Please!” While he changed into slippers and set a pretty statue on the mantlepiece above the fireplace.

  “You know me… just a silly ol’ goofball, Becks.” He sighed at last.

  /

  Through a long, dark passage fraught with many false turnings, dead ends and side passages that led back to the start, Kiley’liyt finally led her exploration team out into the light of an alien sun…

  “I stumbled on this purely by accident a few days ago… I reported it immediately, of course…”

  The cavern holding the void maw opened onto a dismal, wrecked and devastated landscape of churned soil, toppled trees and slowly rising water, clogged with filth and debris.

  “I did warn you that the place is a mess…” She sighed softly, her harp of bones, silk and sinew whispering her words to the team behind her low slung, furry and oblate abdomen.

  Like most jumpers, she was more suited for scouting and exploration than her orb weaver, funnelweb and recluse companions, whose preferences were more sedentary.

  “There were some oversized, monster insects rampaging in this valley… I eliminated one of them, but the chaos and destruction remains.”

  “Is there sentient life here?” Thylastrich asked softly, her tiny harp seeming even more ridiculous against her enormous dark form than ever. “I detect some faint scents of mammalian ‘cooking’ in the air…” Their youngest and least experienced party member was also the largest. The massive tarantula stepped nervously onto the alien soil, her trepidation showing in every hair on her carapace.

  “Unlikely in the extreme, Thyla…” Lady Finli’tichintch murmured confidently from the rear of the group. “Any other sentients in this dungeon world are most likely explorers as well; these rifts in the veil are very new and chaotic. Logic suggests this domain has only just become active.” The widow matron tapped her hind pair of legs in annoyance at the big tarantula. “When did you ever smell mammalian cookery before?” She scoffed.

  “We are exposed to simulated aroma samples in xeno-sensitivity training, my lady… My instructors assured me that the samples were accurate and that such scents strongly suggest sentient life is near. It seems that most mammals and nearly all humanoids engage in ‘cooking’ and similar behaviors, my lady…”

  Kylie bobbed nervously and scuttled in a circle in front of the small group of explorers, demanding their attention. “As I mentioned, two monstrous insects were engaged in combat here in this place. Both were in the mid range of A-tier, on the standard scale, yet I received no dungeon messages… none at all.”

  “Monsters of A-tier are not guaranteed success, many dungeons require prospective lords to fight significantly over their weight class… occasionally by as many as three ranks, before becoming eligible.” Lady Finli’tichintch declared firmly. “We shall investigate fully, before we abandon such a valuable discovery.”

  “As you wish, noble lady.” Kylie bowed low before her ladyship, humbly begging her pardon in the old traditional way.

  “Yes… splendid… I have high hopes for you and young Thyla…” The widow matron strummed a few thoughtful chords on her voice of primate bones and skins. “Let us climb out of this dismal hole and see what is to be seen.”

  It took a few minutes to clamber out of the rift in the mountaintop and gain a view of the whole valley. I see our remaining insect.” Kylie narrated for the less visual members of the expedition. “It seems to have devoured the one I slew and gone off to molt its shell… We should leave it unmolested. The isopod tasted truly awful indeed.”

  The colossal dung beetle had crawled into a narrow chasm and buried itself in loose scree and stones, to shed its old shell, digest its tremendous meal and grow a larger size carapace.

  In the upper reaches of the valley, sharp arachnid eyes flicked to an anomaly, a long, straight cut down the mountainside to the south, running from one mountain pass to another, before vanishing.

  “I believe I have detected a road; an established and often improved or even constructed path across the terrain, many sentients create such roads to ease travel.” Kylie called to her team, as the strange thing came into view.

  “Doubtful, young hatchling.” The widow matron soothed her rattled scout gently. “There are monsters known to create such paths naturally; while many dungeon worlds appear with structures and such already constructed… Such are the mysteries of the dungeon phenomenon.”

  Her confident words and firm insistence quelled the nervous young jumper.

  “Lord Aclintherios sent me a vision, I am instructed to explore this rift personally. I must comply, this is a sacred charge!” She declared firmly, closing the matter entirely.

  “Movement on the thing that is not a road, my lady! An equine and several bipeds I believe, some species of bipedal insect, perhaps. They seem to possess some sort of carapace.” Thyla announced from her position on the edge of the group.

  “I’ve never tasted equine before.” Strither’tch mumbled hungrily. “Heard they’re good.”

  Kylie shot a frustrated glare at the hungry orb weaver and performed a quick run of buckdance steps in annoyance. “Regulations require we attempt to establish contact, before predating them. What if they’re sentient?”

  “Lord Aclintherios directed me… Directed us to this world. Dare you question his divine Will? This world has been set aside and prepared for us… For us! By his Will alone!” The widow scolded her scout vigorously, waving her hourglass marking and stamping in place to really let her know who was in charge.

  “I will not entertain any further heresy… For that is what it amounts to! Questioning the divine visions of our lord. Life Weaver preserve me from the youth of today!” She stamped at last.

  “This world is placed here for our use, we shall use it as we see fit. Kylie, Thyla, go capture that prey, I’m hungry.”

  “Yes, matron lady…” Thyla murmured obediently, while Kylie followed the larger arachnid in sullen silence.

  /

  The team on the mountainside woke just a little late, but on the high, narrow peaks, the sun arrived late too. Wilf and Rio followed right after Dannyl, with Barry, Lindsey Frankie and Flash after. Maya silently roamed the woodland behind the party, just off their trail, watching for stalking nasties.

  They marched the mile and a half to the overlook afoot, watching the woods and peaks with care… which paid off in a few wildlife sightings and the discovery of a patch of very tasty mushrooms among the pines. A half hour later, the team looked down on the miserable and festering mire once more. Of the bugs, there remained no sign, beyond the scattered chitin parts and plates.

  “Ok, new plan. Wilf and I go in and scout around. Rio and Maya, stay on the high ground and watch out for trouble.” The veteran Adventurer indicated a wide section of the trail with good sightlines and a difficult approach from below.

  “The rest of you, stay up on the valley rim, ready to ride down for the count if things get weird. It makes me nervous, what could take out those two bugs and yet remain hidden…?” Dannyl wondered nervously, as he prepared to descend the trail with his backup.

  “G… Gi… Giant Sp… Sp… Spiders….?” Lindsey asked very weakly, while pointing to an inoffensive cluster of pines on a boulder strewn slope above the road.

  “Not likely… It’d have to be absolutely… oh… Fuck!” The veteran warrior’s strange metal whip snaked out across the roadside, thrashing like an angry serpent, as a truly enormous black tarantula bigger than a merchant wagon, stepped out onto the roadway, as another arachnid of similarly terrifying size emerged from the brush.

  The soft, hungry, chiming roar of Dannyl’s whip coming to life galvanized the rest into action, as all six kids fell in behind their officer, bristling with sharp and pointy things.

  There was no shortage of weapons on the other side, either… The huge tarantula reared back, displaying a set of fangs that had to be eighteen inches long, backed up by at least twelve hundred pounds of armored, hairy bug.

  On the mountain side, a pale brown jumper, streaked with dark fur lurked in the treeline.

  It was smaller, but even at half the size of the black spider, it was a serious menace, since it seemed to be damned quick among the trees.

  “Wilf, Back me up. Rio, take charge of the others, keep that smaller one busy, ride like hell if things get tight…”

  Dannyl whispered tersely.

  /

  “They aren’t running, Kylie… You said they would run away!” Thyla danced in a near panic, as the humanoids lined up and produced an array of weapons. Even the horse looked ready to throw down.

  The sound of Kylie’s voice drifted on the breeze, a song beyond hominid hearing, just for her. “They haven’t seen me yet, that’s all, once they realize there’s two of us, they’ll flee for sure…” Kylie’s voice lost the beat, as a majority of the human force turned unerringly to confront her, among the trees. A soft, musical chord sang on the breeze, a gentle note or three played on a flute of some kind.

  “Oh, shit… They have envenomed darts…” Kylie fell silent, as the entire force spread out, re-orienting to face her, alone.

  “Oh, crap…” She danced nervously, while retreating for the trees… “Kylie… Kylie?”

  “Kylie can’t answer you, why don’t you drop your aggressive posture, tarantula maiden.” One of the humans danced… in her local dialect.

  ‘Hearing’ the accents of home in the form of a weird, hardshelled biped was too much… she fled into the woods, skittering down the mountainside as fast as she could.

  /