by Chris Turner
The great red and white canvas balloon flared up, the gondola rocked... just like in his dream... He felt familiar qualms. Happily, the five balloon passengers were much different from those of his memory, and Risgan began to gain some confidence. The looming vessel gained height; he heard the fires roar and the fifteen-foot guide-birds, the grey-feathered and yellow-eyed teratyx, squawked at having their tethers pulled by the conductor. The lands swung below in a flush of green and gold.
Needless to say, a somewhat circumspect man by nature in regard to omens, Risgan did not strike up any conversations or gambling congress with his fellow travellers. For this reason, the voyage proceeded with a certain glumness. Perhaps it was befitting Risgan’s mood, for he felt a changed man, or at least wary of gods, fate, and unseen forces, in memory of the disturbing words of the Adjudicator—or was it his daughter? Risgan gave a laconic laugh. Pure nonsense! A trick of the mind, a farce of imagination.
The conductor bawled out the names of the sites below: the Fallen Pillars of Lasinx, Sphinx Valley, Bisimen Keep, Ourtia Necropolis, the doomed City of Hugus, the Raging River Tivis, Bristlebax Falls, Fernamon IV’s Parthenon, the cursed Obelisk of Duranth, and finally Mangor Wood. Once again, Risgan felt a noticeable pang tingle his spine. To traverse these menacing territories and dense brooding tangles as which wheeled below, would make Fadnar Forest seem a picnic...
The journey continued for hours, and leagues of forest passed underneath. Far to the east, a thin black river rolled north like an unfurled ribbon. Not far overhead patches of sunlight angled through broad covens of purple cloud.
Risgan peered up curiously as the canvas rippled. The weather was known for its capricious moods in these parts and not surprisingly, turned suddenly for the worse over the wood known as Mangor. A strong freak gust caught the balloon broadside, twisting it like a cork on the ocean. The canvas buckled, billowed, slid sideways in the updraft. The conductor compensated by smothering the fire and letting the balloon drop several feet. Down, down the carriage dropped while the winds raged above. The trees rose ominously to greet them, and Risgan thought, while peering over the rope-railing, to catch a slur of movement in those green cauliflower clumps of trees.
A strange whistling sound shivered from below. A projectile shot up from the green expanse: a fire arrow that pierced the starboard teratyx, catching it clean through the neck.
Risgan felt his heart leap, his throat constrict. The beast flapped and died; its feathered hide caught on flames, flopping like a dead weight. It pulled the gondola sideways. On a dangerous yaw, Risgan plunged with the momentum of the carriage hard against the rope railing where he scrabbled to cut the strained leather reins holding the dying, twitching beast.
To no avail. The conductor efforted to tamp out the flames with his isk rod, flames that were eating the canvas.
“Cut the line!” he cried. “Or we die!” In his last frantic efforts, Risgan was pulled back with the gondola’s sharp jerk—his blade could not cut the line in time.
There was pandemonium in the carriage as the gondola fell many more precarious feet. Another gust and the craft gave a perilous lurch slantwise. The trees below suddenly seemed like sharp spikes of death. Risgan braced himself for impact. Elbows and knees of the other passengers jabbed up at him with the force of truncheons and he tried to gain higher ground in the doomed craft, climbing up the rigging. A great tearing sound seared the air. The passengers flew like dolls. Leaves and splinters of wood thrashed about Risgan’s legs, lashing and lacerating his skin. He was lucky to have one leg caught in a guy wire. It saved his life. He hung suspended from the certain crush of impact, upside down; his scored face was less than a dozen feet from grass and rocks, bobbing like a dizzy spider. His left leg dangled from the guy wire which was curled precariously around the middle branches of an old gnarled daobob.
The other passengers were gone, strewn—likely killed and beyond help in the sudden crash.
Yards to his side, the great grey teratyx hung impaled, with a quarrel ripped through its gullet, feathers still smouldering. The other beast had broken free of its harness and likely sailed off into the sky. Who had shot the arrow? It was clearly of primitive design. A thick painted shaft quivered gently with a ruffled fin of vulture feathers.
Wood savages! Risgan felt the urge to flee; the hunters would come for him, even if they expected no survivors.
Risgan gathered his wits. His hunting knife was still belted at his waist. He cut his ample bulk down with rapidity, sawing the keen blade along the wire’s tautness.
The youth talisman was gleaming on the grass, like a ripe apple. He hoisted it gingerly, protecting fingers with the hem of his cloak so he would not be smitten by its enchantment. He wrapped it tenderly in his pouch. The relic hunter noted with distaste that the bauble was almost too easy to recover.
He collected the few of his possessions that he could find—pickaxe, calipers, flint and tinder—and scrambled on his hands and knees, muttering like a ship-wrecked sailor. The wish bone, gibbeth club, and the sum of his tools were gone.
In shock, Risgan loped to the edge of the wild clearing, mumbling an oath that he was a cursed man. He studied his surroundings. The ground was uneven, thick with coarse twitch grass and fungi. The young mandrake trees surrounding him were low and sprawled like twisted bonsai: thick olive green dwarfs with squat trunks. Between the twists of branches, dark holes peeked back, showing inimicable vistas stretching into the forest’s interior. The old daobob had saved him, thrust up in the middle of the glade like a withered sentinel, a grandfather of ancient time. Remnants of the balloon garlanded its hoary branches, flapping like tattered flags. Raucous birds chirped on high, yellow bills voicing competitive squawks with the other birds of the forest.
Risgan assessed his wounds. They were minor, considering what he had survived. He faced facts. He was marooned in an unknown land, alone in the wilderness without guide, information or food. He must take action or the workers of this mischief would be collecting their fruits... even now he thought to hear a flutter in the woods...
That’s the end of the excerpt. Read the rest of The Temple of Vitus on kindle unlimited. innersky.ca/vitus
Here are the books in the series:
Forsaken Magic
The Isk Rider
The Temple of Vitus
Visit innersky.ca/kindle to browse all Chris’s SFF titles…
Other books by Chris Turner,
writer of fantasy, adventure, and SF.
Visual artist, musician.
Dragon Sea Chronicles
Rogues of Bindar
Icarus
Dragon Lords
Starhustler
The Timelost
Denibus Ar
The Dragon of Skar
Read all of Chris’s free books here with movie-style soundtracks:
innersky.ca/booktrack
