Book: 4

  Chapter 8

  Karma Chameleon

  “It was wrong to drape Barry’s babystick on your face while you were sleeping… I gruk that now. I shouldn’t play games with other peoples’ danglies and tinglies.” The chastened goblin murmured softly, from her low bow on the floor.

  “I understand and forgive you, Daisy… but never do anything like that again. Now please get up, we don’t do that groveling thing where we come from, my dear.” Lindsey scolded the miserable goblin girl, when she cornered her at dinner blubbering half-coherent apologies at her friend. “What you did to us was awful and embarrassing.”

  “Yub-yub… I just got excited, cause I thought you was finally gonna get your girl-parts smashed up real good.” She nodded vigorously and smiled. “Understand now. Human mating is super slow-slow. You guys can smush whenever you finally decide… is it tonight? I wanna throw a smush party for Lin-lin!”

  “Daze… you’re doing it again.” Gandree warned the tiny terror. “She wanted to invite you on a patrol ride with her team.” The dwarf sighed, while Daisy was planning a future ‘smush party’ with a few of her friends. “I’ll be coming along too, so it’ll be fine. We’re hunting something called a chameleon wyrm…”

  “Is dangerous prey, but good-good to eat!” Daisy urged from her party planning committee meeting, somehow managing both conversations at once. “And smush party is for Sara-smile. She and her hunt-sisters ride out after we get this lizard. Learnt my lesson with human courtships! Too-too complicated.”

  Riding with the warg knights was an exhilarating experience reserved for the truly bold; Lindsey found the prospect terrifying. It was also her first time riding solo on one of the Ward family’s bikes; which added a layer of irritation from Flash that the poor horsie couldn’t hide.

  “Not even horse shaped!” He complained, while she was armoring up. “I’ve grown so much… maybe…”

  Flash had grown quite a bit, as familiars will. The gangly colt had become a strong and well muscled young stallion, but was not yet ready to try more than short jaunts with a training saddle and a very light rider. Lindsey in full kit was too much for him to carry in the field and he knew it.

  “Hush, silly! You’ll be carrying me soon, dear. For now, just run with us and enjoy the day.” She scolded him gently, with a scritchy-scratchy on his big flat jaw muscle. As always, that brought his snuffling lips to her face for a slobbering.

  “Ew, horse boogers!” Flash’s rider complained and pitty-patted at his big empty horse head, lost in their favorite game.

  They rode out with three of Daisy’s junior warg knights and their familiars at dawn, running and rolling in a loose line up the narrow trails of Goblinhome, headed for the low mountains to the southwest.

  “Lizard is in the hills, a threat to traveling gobbs on the road. King-papa wants all roads open all the time, cause we is learning trade!” She nodded vigorously, as she sank into Jasmine’s fur and the party took off into the warm, late summer woods.

  Over lunch, beside a rushing waterfall pouring down a granite massif from a cleft high above, Lindsey pressed Daisy for more details.

  “You said you were ‘learning trade’ tell me about that dear.” She urged the cheerful goblin, while trying to find a way to sit or stand that didn’t hurt her butt.

  “Yub. Trade is tough… stuff is worth more or less, here or there, but is maybe made into something, first? Sometimes yub, sometimes nub!” She shook her head and buried her face in Gandree’s chest. “Makes no sense!”

  “I tried explaining it…” The big dwarf rumbled softly, looking helpless.

  “Trade, my young friends, is much like gambling.” A tall, brightly robed man said, as he stepped out of a cave behind the waterfall, smiling blandly. Somehow, his grand and elegant garments emerged entirely dry from behind the cascade.

  “Uncle Wheel!” Daisy chirped happily, abandoning Gandree’s arms for the strange man’s embrace.

  “Hello, children. I’m the Wheel of Fortune… I’m not certain if we’ve met before.” He shrugged and took off his shining over-robe of embroidered silks and costly ornaments, before wadding it up and tucking it into the collar of his plain brown robe of common cloth, where it couldn’t have possibly fit.

  “Oh, crap.” Barry sighed, sounding exhausted. “Hi, uncle Wheel. It’s me, Barry, remember?”

  “Of course I remember you, brother! Hush up while I chat up the lovely ladies!” He winked broadly at the goblins, and Lindsey too, flashing a grin that made several sigh. “Who would like their fortunes told, hmm?”

  “Nub nub!” Daisy insisted firmly, still hugged to his waist like a baby sloth on its mother. “You said trade was like gamblin… tell me more! I like gamblin!”

  “So I did, my dear…” He answered with a smile, as he slowly took over the camp and their lunch break. Baskets of meat pies and wrapped sandwiches steadily appeared, which was not uncommon around any of the Tarots or the Wards. Amid the foodstuffs, a dark woolen rug appeared, unrolling from under the hem of Wheel’s robe as he walked in a circle in his chosen spot.

  When he sank down, cushions were scattered around, as well as an elaborate water pipe, filled with something dangerously fragrant.

  “Gambling and trade are much the same. Look and see.” He whispered cheerfully, as shining trinkets scattered from his sleeves. He held up a tiny jewel, glinting in the sun and hurling rainbows across the clearing by the waterfall.

  “This stone, where it is found in nature, is quite common, thus it has no value. However, once cut by the hands of a master, it becomes this pretty thing, which in the end, still has little value.” He dropped the sparkling trinket and picked up a small, dull white minnow.

  “This has great value; it’s a fish monster that dwells deep under a volcanic lake. This is among the rarest and most valued commodities, in certain places.” He smiled and shrugged. “A diamond, or the volcanic saline shark. In the end, neither is worth much at its point of origin and the value of the thing has little to do with its usefulness.”

  “Diamond? Fishie?” Daisy asked, fixated on the little white, dried fish and the glittering gem.

  “Yes, Daze, fishie and diamond. You can have both, if you answer me a few simple questions.” Wheel said with a smile as he held up an empty waterskin, which he made a great show of filling at the waterfall.

  “For the fishie, my dear… Which is more valuable, the waterskin, or the water inside?” He asked, holding up the dripping sack of monster fish skin.

  “Easy, waterskin! Can always get more water right there!” She declared, snatching up her fishie and gobbling it up with a smile that swiftly faded.

  “The volcanic saline shark is a delicacy, and the saltiest fish in the known realms.” Wheel remarked pleasantly. “Now which is worth more, Daze? The skin or the water?”

  He laughed and laughed, as the gasping green girl chugged his waterskin and refilled it at the falls, glaring at him all the while.

  “On several worlds, that salty ass shark would fetch more than this diamond…” He said with a smile, as he passed her the shiny stone. “In the end, neither is as valuable as a skin full of cool water, when you really need one.”

  “That’s pretty… soft headed, uncle Wheel.” Barry grumbled. “Trade and commerce connect people and cultures to each other and expand our horizons!”

  “Two things can be true at once, my son!” Wheel chuckled merrily, as he began eating among the goblins and kids, as if he hadn’t just appeared from nowhere at all.

  “How did you get here, uncle?” Daisy asked merrily, once she was settled in Gandree’s lap and playing with her diamond. “Nub cave behind that waterfall. I checked!”

  “Of course there isn’t!” The odd fellow wearing their father’s face and form agreed. “What kind of slap-dash, half-assed reality would have a cave or hidden passageway behind every waterfall? Ridiculously unlikely!” He scoffed, blustered and gesticulated, but refused to explain his sudden appearance from behind the cascade and the mossy wall of unbroken stone it fell from.

  “A chameleon wyrm, you say… How exciting! I wish you a splendid hunt, but I must continue on! I have a very important meeting to attend!” Wheel announced from nowhere, despite no one having mentioned their mission. “Have fun, kids!” With that, he vanished; not down the trail or into the woods, he just took a step and was gone.

  “Weirdo!” Gandree grumbled unhappily.

  “Weird indeed…” Daisy agreed merrily. “Uncle Wheel bonkers, even for a human! Where can I gets another salty fishie?”

  /

  The series of highly improbable, but not technically impossible events and occurrences that propelled Wheel from that distant mountainside, down to the inn near the king’s castle, shook the local probabilities for a while, across several highly inconsistent variables…

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  But that was probably fine, he reflected idly, as a freak flash flood carried him astride an abandoned beaver dam, down the last few hundred yards to the valley floor.

  The deluge drained away, leaving a neat stack of wet mud and sticks, right where an industrious young beaver was just starting his first dam.

  “Huh, fancy that.” Wheel muttered, as he strolled past the confused beast, dropping the fine fellow a carrot on his way by. “Pardon me!”

  He whistled the melody to ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ as he swaggered into the common room and took a seat at the table for tea beside the host and hostess, before anyone realized he’d arrived.

  /

  “I dunno why I’m supposed to wait here with my thumb up until the Wheel gets here…” Gary complained sourly, while Shai ran her fingers through his hair. “Not the boss of me…”

  “Yes dear one, they are not the boss of thee; but sweet Shai is. The trading is good, the locals are friendly and we’re guests of the king, lad. Let us linger a while and enjoy some new sights.” She urged him gently.

  “Gold panning?” He asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.

  “Hmm… yes!” Ghnash mumbled through a poached salmon sandwich he’d cobbled together from leftovers in the fridge. “Much mineral wealth here. As dungeon lord, I used my powers to bring good things to the surface here and there.” The goblin murmured happily as he split his huge snack with his two queens, who were noticeably swelling around their middles already. The two regal ladies were ravenous and deeply interested in the king’s handiwork, pausing only to add mustard, before tuning the weirdos out to focus on the important things.

  “Garlic aioli!” Chelsea insisted with near fanatical fervor.

  “Olive tappenade.” Sabrina replied, cool and immovable as a mountain.

  During that heated debate between two darling damsels, the group noticed Wheel had arrived, at some point. “Wasabi mayo would like to throw its hat in the ring, great queens.” He intoned with utter sincerity, offering a jar of something light green to the royal snackers.

  “Now that the ladies are busy, deciding the culinary fate of the nation… What have you done, Fool? There’s a moon up there! Earth’s moon!” The brown robed man scowled at his younger self and shook a warning finger in the most menacing way. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I was just…” Gary began, before he stopped himself and shrugged. “I don’t answer to any of you guys… Do I?”

  “Nope.” Wheel answered with a foolish grin and a wink. “Tell ‘em to get bent. Mortals are allowed to fuck with the rules of creation. Free agency isn’t just a concept, it’s part of what makes the universe at large work.” He said, through an abominably self satisfied smirk.

  “Isekai souls are one of the ways the outer gods tune and balance the machinery of… everything. We appear with new knowledge and skills on worlds that lag in development, or pop out of the ether to overthrow a dark lord or demon king, that sort of thing. Truck-Kun is in charge of that, he’s a big picture guy, can’t really focus on the finer details. That’s where his lucky cats and their cursed bells come in.”

  On cue, Shiro pounced into his lap, purring loud enough to shake the dishes on the table, despite remaining kitten sized.

  “We are in a tiny crack or bubble in the universe, a polyp in the greater ether’s generative tissue… Gross, right? It is; it’s super gross.” He confided urgently.

  “Through terrible acts and awful deeds, a group of immortal ass-holes tried to create a sub-universe of their own, in an attempt to boot-strap themselves into the realms of the outer gods. They did a lot of murder to power their spells, gang. A lot of murder.”

  “That’s a running theme.” Gary replied drily.

  “Yeah. Well, the god responsible for un-fucking these kinds of fuck-ups is Truck-Kun, who is super pissed off at being duped for so long and really upset that the immortal culprits are no longer…” Wheel muttered quietly. “The outer gods and their servitors couldn’t peer into this place, because the Deadworld lies at the heart of it, our Dead World.”

  “Earth?” Gary asked cautiously, which was weird, since in some disconcerting ways, he was asking himself.

  “Afraid so. Our old world just keeps churning along, spawning life and being its busy, chaotic self all alone and without sentient life. No one really knows how long it’s been since humanity fled earth. Few even pause to consider the birthplace of humanity at all, since it’s been cut off from and forgotten by the ether at large for so long.” Wheel sighed and smiled.

  “I swing by once in a while, when the mood takes me. I stare at the familiar, changed globe and think, sometimes. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  “What? What’s the problem?” Gary asked, while the rest tried to understand their blather.

  “This little pustule in the ether is tiny, in the celestial expanse of everything; but on a human scale, still so vast as to be effectively infinite. That means we’re still stuck in the remnants of the plot that almost destroyed us and cracked the universe in a tender spot.” He grinned and shook his head.

  “Nasty, I know! Now, some of the great ones want to wipe this blot away, while others are unwilling to lose certain new things before their time is due. Beast and the Devourer are both unwilling to let this section of the ether be wiped clean… which means exactly what you think it does.”

  “That’s pretty uncool. Some of my favorite people and things are here.” Gary grumbled, his face darkening slightly.

  “Yeah, I get it! Nobody wants to get wiped away by cosmic forces. The others all think I’m somehow in touch with what the outer gods think, or something. I’ve developed a bit of a reputation for being touched by the outer gods… but I’m just a guy who plays the odds and cheats a lot.” He said with a smile. “I’ll be all mysterious and cryptic, you keep doing what you’re doing.”

  Wheel slapped his knees and got up, grinning and waving to the gathering. “You should probably get rid of the orphaned god and undying troll that are haunting you soon, though. That could get messy.”

  “Troll?” Gary asked the guy, as he was preparing to leave.

  “You knew about the god, but not Ticklefoot? That’s crazy! Yeah, you’re a little bit more haunted than just about anyone except Chariot, but those two really stand out from the crowd.” He waved and stepped out onto the lawn with a wink. “See ya!”

  Then he walked off down the road, in a perfectly ordinary way.

  “Ok, he’ll do.” Gary grumbled in grudging admiration of the completely inscrutable jerk.

  “Yeah, Wheel is a special kind of asshole. You never know when he’s gonna roll up.” Ghnash sighed happily. “I like this moon situation, it feels… warm.”

  “Yeah, feels nice… like it belongs there.” Gary agreed idly. “So, whose face is that?” He asked, just as blandly. “The face in the moon?”

  “Dunno… He’s looking at you, though.” The king grumbled a little sourly. “I’m king here!”

  “Aww… shit! I recognize that glare now. That’s War!” Gary spat, furious and less controlled than usual. “I recognize that piggy little eye!”

  /

  “I can’t believe he saw me…!” War spat onto the airless lunar surface. “That wretched mortal worm!”

  “Brother…” Marduk spoke softly, from behind the hulking form of the furious divine. “You need his assistance to escape this place… Otherwise, when he passes from his mortal life, you will surely follow him.” The childlike divine smiled sweetly at the huge, blood drenched god.

  “He honestly doesn’t want to destroy you. Give him an excuse to follow that instinct and he surely will. I know you have been watching all this time, brother.”

  “I Just want to destroy him… is that so wrong?” War asked pitifully, sounding very small for someone so large.

  “Yes, brother; it is wrong. Consider that for a while, before you try to contact him again.” Marduk sighed softly. “I’m going home. This place is dismal.”

  “He still has those hot-spring baths… right?” War asked quietly. “Over where you dwell?”

  “Oh, yes… the baths are one of my favorite things about the Madman’s moon. They carry away my troubles and worries without fail, once the soothing waters engulf me…” Marduk smiled at his imprisoned brother and gave him a cheery wave. “Try to open your mind to new possibilities, War. I believe that you can become someone worth saving, with a little work.”

  Marduk vanished in a shimmering swirl of golden light, taking what little warmth and grace the place had held away with him.

  “I could really use a bath…” War muttered angrily, while wiping ineffectually at the clotted gore covering his body.

  /

  The monster’s long, pink tongue shot out, flicking a ball of shimmering goop at the hunters, striking one as it fled. In a shimmering swirl of colors, the thirty foot, color-shifting lizard skittered up the wall a bit and stopped, fading from view in a few heartbeats. Darts and arrows peppered the stones, striking nothing that bled.

  “I’m gonna need a bath after this…” Daisybell grumbled, as her prey scuttled higher up the canyon wall and vanished in the shadows. “This stuff stinks!”

  She wiped at the sticky, entangling, mucus ball covering her left shoulder.

  “Heads up, on the left!” Another wad of sticky snot splatted down, missing one of Daisy’s riders by inches. The pile of clear goop burst into flying wads of reeking stuff, spraying in a wide arc across the hunters.

  Barry regretted calling the warning, as a gobbet of the muck caught him in the eye-slit of his visor, becoming a fine mist of reeking, spicy misery inside his helmet.

  “Ugh… gross!” He gagged and spat for a few seconds, while the rest of the team pressed on, leaving Lindsey to help him clear his eyes and mouth of the mess. “This thing’s so slippery, I almost wonder if it’s smart…”

  “There’s two.” Daisy gasped, as she ducked behind a boulder nearby, to avoid a globe of flung lizard spit and snot. “Sneaky-sneaky! Lizard tails can sometimes break off and if strong enough, can grow a new lizard. One beast, two bodies and double the animal smarts. Still just a monster, though.”

  “Two monsters, Daze…” Barry grumbled. “Two big, tough, sneaky, scaly bastards!”

  /

  In the steep, rugged canyons and cliffs, the wargs were less than helpful. They resigned themselves to waiting at camp for the hunters, with Flash and two of Daisy’s apprentice warg riders. The familiars still got to watch the show through their bond-holder’s senses, as the team struggled to get an angle on the sly, sneaky prey.

  Long tall Sally took a wad of snot that knocked her helmet askew and sent her staggering, until Delilah darted over and dragged her under cover to get her eyes and nose cleared of gunk.

  While those two were busy, a flicker of movement behind them drew a warning shout from Gandree, a moment too late. With a vicious tail slap, the two goblin knights went tumbling from behind their sheltering boulder in a heap, struggling weakly.

  The lizard dashed for the cave wall, scurrying to join its partner on the upper reaches of the canyon. The dwarf was already in motion, his long, bronze studded club swinging for the fences.

  The crack of splitting scales and breaking bone preceded the beast’s awful hiss of fury and pain by a long, breathless heartbeat, as the weapon struck true. The dwarf’s club snapped the creature’s spine, rendering it crippled, but not helpless.

  The wyrm thrashed its head back, snapping at the short guy tormenting it with powerful jaws. He gave it his club to gnaw on, while he rolled away; making room for Barry and Daisybelle, who charged in with heavy spears to strike at the creature’s armored flanks.

  Those two harried the immobile beast, as Daisy’s three knights who were still in the game, distracted the second monster from the grisly work getting done farther down the arroyo. Bernadette, Roseanna and Sarah dove and skipped from boulder to boulder, drawing the giant lizard’s attention with thrown stones, keeping it fixated on them, until the rest of the team joined the battle.

  Poor Sally and Delilah were out of the fight, battered, bruised, covered with sticky snot, sand and small stones but limping away toward camp under their own power.

  Lindsey and Daisybelle struck the final blow together, felling the first of the two with lance and spear thrusts to the creature’s vulnerable throat, as it made a last, desperate attempt to eat Barry whole.

  Bloody, dusty and pretty damn tired, the hunters converged on their prey, trapped in a narrow defile with sides too crumbly and unstable to climb. On the ground against a half dozen determined hunters, the battle ended swiftly. Gandree’s heavy club stove in its skull, after concerted attacks from the team drove it into his strike zone.

  “Tough bastards…” The dwarf muttered as Barry helped him out from under their kill; his armor battered by a half ton of dying lizard rolling over him.

  King papa will praise us for such good-good hunting!” Daze chirped as she worked with Gandree and two of her riders to skin the more intact beast. A few dozen yards away, Barry and Lindsey handled the other, more ragged carcass.

  “Daisy is a skilled huntress, but she’s new with steel blades. Gandree is new to skinning, but handy with knives; they’ll do fine.” Barry murmurred, as he got to work on the giant lizard. “They’ll be done before us, this is gonna be a tough job.” Many broken scales, scrapes and wounds marred the prey, complicating the process. Two hours later, the hunters staggered into camp, exhausted, sore and filthy, but laden with lizard meat and bones along with the big prize, the shimmering, coruscating hides of the creatures. Tacked up on drying racks, they gleamed and reflected a rainbow of colors in the fading sunlight, scattering beautiful illusions around Gandree’s little house and baths.

  “I like your place, brother…” Barry sighed during the boy’s time in the baths. “I only wish you had a second pool.”

  Just like that, boys time ended with a rush of naked green girls, dashing in and driving the boys away with sheer voluptuous giggly, naughtyness. With the boys driven off, Lindsey and her new hunt-sisters took over the pool, as was proper.

  “Good-good hunt! Promises good hunting for you, Sara!” Daisy cooed at a dark green marsh gobb with a ready smile and a long scar on her cheek. “Catch a strong one, sister!”

  “Rather find a keeper, like yours, Daisy!” She rumbled happily. “Sharesies?”

  Even with a broad wink and giggle, showing she wasn’t serious, Lindsey blushed bright red and almost ran from the bath.

  “Nub-nub, sister… These humans is super prudes!” Daisy explained gently. “Is very concerning… but is their tradition…”

  “Oo!” Sara purred happily. “Daisy is wise, much smartness and cleverness!”

  “Is product of diligent study. Work hard sister! You will learn to gruk human ways too!” Daisy offered from her lofty heights of wisdom and knowing many things.