Posted by AlOmega on June 28, 2004 at 18:53:53:
Godfrey was in that state of being half-asleep and half-awake. You’ve been there. It’s like you’re waking up but the remnants of dreams are dropping threads of imaginary reasoning into your wakening thoughts. In this instance it was as if he had received a warning. Perhaps something was amiss - or perhaps not. He had received warnings many times; however, this seemed odd in that he felt an urgency attached to this warning. Knowing he would never fall back asleep - especially since the farmers were already feeding livestock and tending other manners - he got up. Gayle was already kneading dough for breads as he left their small bedroom. Gathering her to him despite the flour and her mild protesting, he exited the hut, stretched and yawned, then looked toward the east. He had talked with the other elders until late in the night. He smiled as he was reminded again of her and how he had been so lucky. Not many wives would let their husbands sleep late when there was so much work to be done.
He had been in this land for sixteen years and knew the area extremely well - almost as well as he knew the pigs and cows and two horses that constituted the livestock. Via idle conversations with merchants and minstrels, he ascertained they lived on a large island several miles west of the mainland. That’s where some of his friends had traveled from.
The political climate was a mix of feudal and benevolent kingship in the area. That is, although the average villager was more or less a peasant, each toiled more for himself rather than for the local ruler. And whenever there was need, an army for mutual protection could be assembled. Every villager - male and female - spent at least one and sometimes two in some sort of military training. Generally this was done by parents to children in much the same way as other skills such as crafting and husbandry were transferred. As a tax, the villagers gave five percent of their goods to the king and another two percent to their local religious cleric.
It was understood that the local cleric was generally elected by the village itself and could be dismissed if it was found that the cleric was corrupted or influenced by merchants, the king, or for any other reason such as stealing. Most clerics had a measure of magical talents and could easily control their avarice. Clerics would train those who showed an interest in pursuing the lifestyle. However, there were tests also designed to willow those who were after power, money, or simply wanted to do little hard labor as farming in those days tended to be. Only one in twenty completed more than a year of training. Clerics, like kings, lived much like any villager in that they also tended farms though these farms consisted of fruit and nut trees.
But it wasn’t clerics or king who greeted Godfrey this day. He saw in the mist of the morning that in the distance someone he knew quite well - a youthful wizard named Merlin. As the young mage neared Godfrey, he could see that he was troubled. The day might prove not so uneventful a day after all.
There had been talk last night of raiders that had ventured inland from a landing nearly a hundred and thirty miles up the coast from where they lived. Not since the last raiding party sixteen years ago had they ventured even that close - perhaps because their elders remembered the small magic that Godfrey had done that day. But then the raiders were probably too young to remember such mutterings - especially since Godfrey rarely used magic. That also was one of the reasons for the late night meeting. Most of the elders remembered Godfrey’s magic. However they were more concerned that due to his advanced age - he was around thirty - if he could still had that magical power. He reassured those that needed reassuring. Besides, as he pointed out, there were other talented wizards and more than a few witches. His eldest son was even more talented than he as was his daughter, Mystique. And Venus wasn’t that far behind.
And then there were the others. Most of these already knew magic in its various forms - charms, transfigurations, and potions. And most wizards and witches used wands nowadays rather than staffs. Eventually, Godfrey once thought, they would need to segregate themselves from the common, mundane, non-magical folk. There were risks in using magic. The common people - even kings - became dependent on magical folk. And if something didn’t work quite like they thought, there was always the possibility that they would seek revenge. Or some would become envious. Merlin was the first to suggest the latter possibility. Perhaps that was why he had come; but Godfrey seriously doubted that, He hoped it didn’t have anything to do with the local king.
“So what brings you here on such a long trek, Merlin. That new wife of yours finally kick you out?”, Godfrey asked with a joviality he scarcely felt. Even from here, he could see that Merlin wasn’t in a jovial mode.
“Gayle and the kids will get a kick out of your visit,” He added. “Do you want some water or wine?”
“Thank you,” he acknowledge to Gayle’s handing him a cup of cool well water. “Yes water will do just fine. This is not a social visit though.”
“Come. Sit. I’ve got some bread baking and butter freshly churned. If you stay the night, we’ll have a small piglet.”
“Please, no bother.”
“Not a ‘bother’”, Gayle said as she shook the remaining flour from her skirts. “The children are off doing chores right now. This afternoon they were going with us for a family outing. And of course there we can practice some of what we’ve learned this past week.”
Merlin looked sharply at Gayle. “Are you using magic these days?”
Gayle’s ears - the parts not covered by her red hair - began to redden as well.
“Magic is to be used when it needs to be,” she replied. “The other villagers know there are many of us magical folks here nowadays. Even in the other two villages, wizards and witches outnumber the non-magic folk. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Fact is,” added Godfrey, “that most of the children being born to everyone nowadays are most likely to be magical as not. And everyone wants the ease magic seems to bring”.
“Something I’ve warned you about previously, Godfrey,” Merlin said before sighing. There was something plaguing Merlin’s mind. That Godfrey saw right off.
“So what’s the problem, Merlin? We’ve known you since you were so high.”
“True enough.” Merlin said wiggling on the old stump-converted chair. “It’s this way. I suppose you’ve heard about those raiders up north.” The two acknowledged that with a nod or two. “Seems that they’ve been a bit too close to what King Unther seems to regard as His trade route to the sea. He’s quite prepared to do something about that though what I have no idea. I suspect a limited campaign since he has so few troupes - or knights as he’s started calling them.”
“Is that it?” quarried Godfrey with surprised contempt.
“Not quite. There are rumors that the raiders are not attacking but are asking about some mage who attacked their fathers with fire and lightning. The only one I knew who had ever done active attacking magic was you. So I thought you might like to come with me and investigate these raiders…”
“…and get him killed!?!” Gayle interrupted rising to her feet. “He’s needed here. Let your king go make war or whatever and leave us be!”
“Not so. I don’t think they know Godfrey from any other wizard hereabouts.”
“Except he’s darker than most and his hair is a bit course. He would stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Now, my wonderful Gayle, you wouldn’t begrudge an old man some fun before he died.”
“Not that. No not that. But if you die a-fore me, I’m bound to dig you up and kill you again and again.”
“You see, Merlin,” Godfrey chuckled. “It doesn’t do to marry a red-head.”
“You’ll be taking some of our fellows with you, or you’ll have ME tagging along.”
“She’s right, you know. We should have an army of our own composed of our own.”
“But what about the village if it’s attacked?”
“We’ve enough protection with the children and elves. Even the dwarves and Gnolls will help us repel anyone foolish enough to attack us. That’s the honest truth, it is.”
So it was that Godfrey with the twins, Cancun and Mystique, along with Merlin, Martin, Rikard, went to another village not that far away. There they added the brother-sister witch-wizard twins, KattyJo and Fakkor Aspen. They continued north on horseback making only one stop to add Merlin’s spouse, Morgana.
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Kataan took a shambling step, then, with a clap of her wings, bounded forward. Viconia hastily retreated, dropping the now useless crossbow, and opened the clasp of her cloak. Pulling the garment off her shoulders with one hand, she unsheathed a little adamantine rod with the other. At a snap of her wrist, the harmless-looking object swelled into Mother’s Kiss, the long-hafted, basalt-headed war hammer the females of House Xentoralo had borne since the founding of their line. Though she preferred her scimitars, this would have to do. Perhaps an enchanted weapon would slay Kataan where the envenomed quarrel had failed.
Viconia would have to hope so. Even if she were willing to stand meekly aside and let the traitor fly away, Kataan, her thoughts perhaps colored by the predatory guise she’d assumed, plainly wanted a fight. It would be stupid to evoke darkness and run. Anyway that wasn’t Viconia’s style or wish at the moment. She knew it would be even more pointless to levitate or ascend through the use of the air-walking charm when the shape shifter could simply spread her ragged wings and follow.
Viconia waved her piwafwi back and forth at the end of her extended arm, to confuse Kataan and serve as some semblance of a shield. No one had ever taught Viconia to fight this way, but she’d observed warriors practicing the technique, and she tried to believe that if mere males could do it, it would surely present no difficult to a high priestess.
Kataan lunged, Viconia lashed the cloak in a horizontal arc. Possibly thanks to luck as much as skill, the garment blocked Kataan’s hands. Her talons snagged in the weave.
Surprised, Kataan faltered in the attack and struggled to free her hands. Viconia stepped through and smashed the pointed stone head of her happer into the center of the servant’s carious brow Bone crunched, and Kataan’s head snapped backward. A goodly portion of her left profile fell off her skull.
Certain the fight was over, Viconia relaxed, and that was nearly her undoing. Transformed, Kataan could evidently endure more damage than almost any creature with warm flesh and a beating heart. And after she had killed Viconia, she could drink a healing potion and become her normal self. This time she opened her mouth, exposing long, thin fangs, and what was left of her head shot forward over the top of the cape. Viconia only managed to fling herself back out of the way in time.
Viconia turned to keep her foe in view. What was it going to take to stop this thing? Viconia wondered. Can I stop it?
Yes, curse it!
When she was a child, her cousin Merinid, weapons master of Xentoralo, dead these many years after her mother tired of him, had told her that any opponent could be destroyed. It was just a matter of finding the vulnerable spot.
Kataan lunged. Once again Viconia snapped out the folds of her frail, flapping shield. The cloak entangled one of Kataan’s hands. The other raked, rasping, and snagged, across Viconia’s coat of fine adamantine links. The winged ghoul’s touch sowed cramping sickness in its wake, but the claws hadn’t quite sheared through the sturdy mail, and the sensation only lasted an instant.
Viconia swung at Kataan’s withered chest in tis covering of filthy, crumbling cloth. If she couldn’t slay the ghoul-thing with a strike to the head, then the heart must be the vulnerable spot, just as with a vampire. Or at least she hoped so. Perhaps she should call to Lolth once more.
While still maneuvering and keeping an eye on Kataan, Viconia nevertheless entered into a light trance. With a sense that was neither sight, hearing, or any faculty comprehensible to those who’d never pledged her services to a deity, she reached into that formless yet somehow jagged place where she was accustomed to touch the shadow of the goddess.
Dread Queen of Spiders, Viconia silently began, I beg you, reveal yourself to me. Restore my powers, even if only for a moment. Have I offended you in some way? Even though I traveled a land far beyond where you dwelt, I have returned. Make me as I was, and I’ll give you many lives - a slave every day for each hour I was gone.
That was when she felt full of the foulness that was Lolth. A turn and finger-flash threw special bolts of energy at the flying dead thing stopping it in mid-wing-beat. Kataan fell to the ground dead for all time. No one - mage or cleric - could bring Kataan to life again.
Viconia mustered some semblance of strength to pull free of her trance state. Gradually, despite the sting of her punctures and bruises, she started to feel a little better. Physically, anyway. Inside her mind, she was berating herself for an outcome that wasn’t really a victory after all. Given that she needed to learn what Kataan knew, not kill her, she’d bungled their encounter from the beginning. If not for luck and her return to the favor of the Goddess, it would be she and not Kataan lying dead on the stone.
But she wasn’t free of her true enemy. And the enemy - surely Zaltor since that had so startled both Kataan and Ryld - hadn’t finished with her. She wasn’t so dull and rusty that she didn’t recall how these covert wars unfolded. It was like a sava game, progressing a step at a time, gradually escalating in ferocity. Her adversary’s first move had been to send her to that foreign land where Lolth could not be found. Now it would be some other time or place that her attacker would strike. She could never let down her guard. She must be always ready or she’d be dead.
And that was how it was. That was how it went until….
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“Use only dead wood,” said Marty. “We’ll make only a cook fire tonight. By tomorrow we’ll be near enough to the king’s castle to pay a visit. If he’s of a mind, we might receive some provisions.”
Your right, Marty”, added Merlin. “I think he’ll cooperate for several reasons not the least that he remembers when Godfrey settled in.”
There wasn’t much to be done. A bit of fire, some stew - mostly coneys, carrots, and other vegetables - for supper, blankets for comfort and bedding. They felt that at this juncture they need set no watch as the sky darkened leaving a faint glow to the west. The horses were very settled also mostly grazing in the meadow-grass to the north of the path they had finished taking. Everyone began settling down for a restful sleep.
“Have you ever wondered about them?” queried Martin to Godfrey.
“What?”
“The stars. They move only with the seasons. I was wondering what they really were. I’ve heard from our priest that they were campfires where our ancestors danced around at night. To me that’s silly.”
Godfrey chuckled. “Probably you’re right. I think that maybe they are stars like our own but so far away that they appear like small candles. But then they might be like some of the ancients have said - a canopy of sky lying over the entire earth.”
“Would they be worth studying I wonder,” Marty said with a swish of his blanket. “I … what’s that?” he responded to a strange sound coming from the south.
Everyone roused quickly enough as Marty gave a shout. Rikard threw another large log on the fire which brightened up the camp considerably. The noise resolved itself into footsteps as the beast slowed. Into the firelight without so much as a shake of its head was a strange creature looking like a pony but with feet that weren’t hoofed.
“Dam, Vicky,” Marty said with a shout. “Why didn’t you stay home?”
“Couldn’t keep me down on the farm. I’m a witch, too. Besides the girls are staying with Gayle.”
“Where did you get this beast?”
Vicky laughed as she drew forth her wand. With a swish and flick and a circling motion, she muttered a few words and the pony-beast resolved itself into a cat.
“Skittles,” Marty said chuckling. “When did you learn to do that?”
“Oh about the time I started magically enhancing the seedlings. I’ve been experimenting with changing objects from one type to another - mostly such things as spoons into forks and the like. But a few days ago I changed a mouse into a rat which got gobbled up by Skittles here. So I thought the words and motion might also work on Skittles and it did and here I am.” Vicky crossed her arms as she smiled smugly. Then she laughed as Lisa, Morgana, and Katty Jo joined her.
“So what are we going to do with Skittles?” Marty asked concerned.
“He’ll join us. I think I’ll call him my familiar. And I think I’ll call this magic ‘Transfiguration‘. But enough of this. Why don‘t we get some sleep. I‘m bushed.“
So saying, everyone settled down. Only Skittles remained awake. The night time was hunting time after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a fine morning that the party came out of the castle gate to see. A very fine morning since they also had provisions for several days travel even if they didn’t find game. The king had provided extra horses for the party as well as for Vicky even against Marty’s protests. The king hadn’t any idea what the raiders were after since they hadn’t actually raided. They had only asked for the stranger who had used magic against their fathers. That had puzzled everyone.
They decided to travel west until they arrived at the coastal villages. Those weren’t that far away - perhaps a few hours of hard travel. It was near midday when the managed a glimpse of the ocean. Breached onto the sand was a square-sailed ship. But as they arrived at the bottom of the first hill, they saw another group about their size but unmounted. Godfrey stopped their discussion by walking his horse up to the group while the others followed behind. The group of Northmen consisted of women as well. Godfrey was the only one not surprised to see two women detach themselves.
As the two kept their swords sheathed, Godfrey decided to do the same and dismounted. The two raised their hands as one spoke.
“Are you the one who used spells on our fathers?”
“Possibly. I don’t know who your fathers were. Perhaps if you tell me when it happened..?”
“About sixteen years ago. You sent some lightning onto some of our relatives and burnt our fathers.”
“True. But who might you be and why do you want to see me?”
“I’m Karin Janosek and this is Jenny Gärtner. It was our fathers that got singed. They were all right.”
“Oh, come on, Karin. Tell him what we want..”
Harry smiled as Karin rounded on Jenny. “If you’re all that in a hurry, why don’t YOU tell him yourself.”
“All right, already, “ Jenny responded angrily.
Now ladies, why don’t we all settle down and discuss this like adults.”
The two looked at him fiercely. If their eyes could shoot lightning bolts, they would have done it. About this time the rest of the party rode up.
“Shall we go to your camp?” Godfrey suggested.
Both looked at one another before responding together, “Of course. That’s what we were going to suggest anyway.”
As the party followed the two ladies, Merlin asked Godfrey how he could understand the women.
“They’re speaking another language” Merlin said when Godfrey’s eyebrows rose. “Yet you understand them.”
Godfrey was puzzled. He spoke another language? That was strange. Though he had never been called on to speak with someone from another country, things like this shouldn‘t happen to him.
“I understood them also,” said Rikhard. “They’re North Men from across the sea. I’ve traded with them a few times so learned their language.”
The camp was just over the hill down by the beach. It didn’t take long to settle in. After introducing one another, the women presented their problem - for a problem indeed is why they had come.
“It happened maybe a year ago,” started Karin. “We were minding our own business when Fredrik encountered a giant.”
“No, no, no, that’s only part of it. Dadya was who got us in trouble with the dragons.”
“What about the wolves?”
Godfrey for some reason chimed in, “Giants, and Dragons, and Werewolves. Oh, my……”
AlOmega