“Just bring them back,” Peredur said, stalking away.
#
Minion entered the kitchen unobtrusively and went straight to the drawers that held the keep’s silverware. Unfortunately, most of it was made of wood and iron.
“Can I help you?”
Minion stopped his rummaging and turned to find Rosa, the kitchen madame. He swallowed hard under her stern gaze, then fumbled in his pocket and produced a piece of paper.
“I’m looking for a bottle of vinegar?” he squeaked after looking over the list.
“Well, you’re not going to find it there,” Rosa said in her thick Italian accent. She reached up into a cabinet and produced a small earthenware bottle with a red ribbon tied about its neck. This she handed to the little man. “Now you bring that back when you’re finished.”
“Yes’m,” Minion replied, snatching the bottle and running.
He stuffed the bottle in his belt and moved through the corridors towards his destination. On his way he came across Father Hugh walking ahead of him, a glistening string of silver prayer beads dangling from his cassock belt. Minion surreptitiously unhooked them and stored them in his sack. Shortly after, while passing through the dining hall, he grabbed a pitcher of water off a table—leaving a Guest scratching her head after turning to fill her cup.
Thus armed, he arrived at the corner of the keep where a spiraling staircase wound its way up to the second and third floors. Minion made the short but taxing climb, lugging the sack over his shoulder. It was here that Loki had parlayed sumptuous lodgings for himself and his servant—sumptuous by Greensprings standards. The apartments were meant to house distinguished visitors away from the hubbub of the Hall for Guests, and had more than one room, a fireplace, and a view overlooking the main courtyard. Once upon a time, these rooms had been a part of the keep’s corner watchtower, hence its circular main room and pointy roof.
“Ah, it’s about time,” Loki said when his servant entered their apartments. “I was starting to wonder. We have much to do.”
Minion approached the central table and deposited the burlap sack there, followed shortly by the pitcher of water and bottle of vinegar. Loki stood up from his chair next to the window where he had been handling what looked like a clay jar. He approached the table, touching on his way the largest object in the room, a pottery wheel. He set the clay jar and a butter knife on the table, wiping his hands on an apron splattered with drying clay. His sleeves were rolled up and his hair unkempt—he had been at work for long hours.
“I hope you have the last of what we need,” he said, sifting through the sack’s contents. “Any more scavenging forays and people will become curious.”
“I’m curious,” Minion said.
“Soon, soon,” Loki responded, picking through the assorted spoons, forks, and knick-knacks. “But it will be far easier to show you.” Loki frowned at the contents. “There isn’t much here in the way of precious metals.”
Minion squirmed. “I’m sorry master, but there are very few true pieces of silverware about. Perhaps if we waited until a festival or holiday when they bring out the good stuff...”
“Ah-ha, that’s more like it!” Loki said energetically, snatching something out of the pile. He held in his hand a pair of scissors with gold handles. Neatly engraved along one of the blades was the name Peredur. “This more than makes up for your ineptitude. Silver would have gotten the job done—not that you brought very much—but gold is much better.”
Loki moved to another part of the room where a small anvil stood near the fireplace. On top of it rested an iron mallet. He grasped the scissors by the handles and laid the blades on the anvil such that they mostly hung over the edge. With the mallet he swung down and neatly broke the blades off.
“That should do nicely,” Loki said, examining what was left in his hand. He tossed the hunk of metal to Minion. “Heat and soften that in the iron pot, then beat it on the anvil into roughly a cube.” Loki retrieved the pitcher of water and moved to a basin where he used the water to wash his hands of the dried clay. “I don’t know what was more of a coup, you finding those pair of scissors or the pottery wheel with which to make the jar.”
“Thank you master!” Minion said, basking in the rare praise.
Loki went back to the table and brushed aside the pile of material from Minion’s latest haul. He hefted the earthenware bottle from the kitchen, unstopped its cork and sniffed the contents.
“Excellent! We are almost there.” As Minion removed the hot piece of gold from an iron pot sitting over the fire with a pair of tongs, Loki grabbed the clay jar and butter knife and finished fashioning a hole in the top of the otherwise closed container. The jar was much smaller than the water pitcher Minion had brought, but still large enough to contain a fair amount of liquid. On the pottery wheel, Loki had essentially created a completely closed capsule, then poked a small breathing hole in the top for the firing process. Once hardened in the fireplace, Loki took the butter knife to the hole to widen it out and smooth its edges. Satisfied with his work, he blew the dust off and set it on the table. He then filled the vessel with the kitchen vinegar.
As Minion began beating on the piece of gold, Loki set to making a fresh batch of clay in a bowl. He threw in some powdered raw material and the water from the washbasin, then kneaded the mix into a fist-sized lump of sticky mud. After washing his hands again he took the bowl to the table and drew from his apron an iron spoon beaten flat, wrapped by a sheet of copper that had once been a small mirror.
“There, master, it’s finished,” Minion said, proudly holding up the pummeled gold with the tongs.
Loki looked down his nose at the object from across the room. “It’s not as pretty as me, but it will do. Now bend a copper fork about it as if wrapping a present, leaving the fork handle hanging out like an excess strip of ribbon.”
As Minion carried out the task, Loki inserted the rod into the hole of the clay jar, pleased to see when looking down that the vinegar rose to fill the spaces between the spoon and the many folds of copper. Next he packed the fresh clay around the rod so that it stood propped up and snug, leaving only the rod sticking out. Finally, he took from another pile of loot a daisy chain of copper necklaces, bracelets, and even a candle-snuffer pounded together end to end. He handed this to Minion.
“When you’re finished, attach the fork handle to the end that isn’t the candle-snuffer.”
After that, Loki turned to his personal luggage and rummaged through a leather satchel. After finding a gold locket, he pulled a chair up to the table and waited for Minion to finish. Once braiding and pounding the pliable metal together, Minion brought the ball-and-chain contrivance to the table where Loki examined it with a critical eye.
“It will do,” he said simply, as Minion stood nearby rubbing his hands.
Loki held up the gold locket. “Recognize this?” he asked.
“Yes my lord, it is yours. A fine piece of jewelry, but you never wear it.”
“That is because it is much too precious to risk losing or having stolen,” Loki replied, slowly opening the locket on a hinge. Minion reacted, having thought all along the teardrop shaped object carved with unknown symbols was solid through and through. Loki presented the contents, a fine white powder, at a safe distance.
Minion tried bending closer for a better look, but Loki pulled it away.
“This, my little helper, is magic powder.” Loki held the locket in the palm of his hand, the lid open. With his other hand he made a waving gesture over it and it began to levitate. Minion gasped. “With great effort, I can make objects move such as this,” Loki explained, concentrating on the floating locket. “But with each passing day, it becomes more and more difficult. Once upon a time common people could do this, but few can do it at all any more. The world is changing.” He made another gesture with his free hand and the powder rose from the locket, swirling in the air like smoke. The locket then slowly settled in his hand as the powder danced above it. “But w
ith this powder, I can do this all day. I can make whatever it comes in contact with levitate as well...” He made a tossing gesture and the powder engulfed Minion in a cloud. A moment later, Minion gasped and kicked as he rose off the ground. “That is but just a sampling of what this powder is capable of.” Loki snapped his fingers and the cloud coalesced and shot back to its resting place in the locket.
Minion fell to the floor with a thud.
“Many uses,” Loki said, snapping the locket shut and placing it in his vest pocket, “like making invisible doors open as wide as I want them to.”
Minion brushed himself off, though not a trace of the powder was on him. “So why are you waiting to do it?”
Loki sighed heavily. “Alas, this here is the last of what I have. Most of the uses for the powder require that it be consumed. Some was lost in just that small demonstration. But that is what all this is for.” He gestured at the gathered paraphernalia on the table.
Minion frowned.
“We are going to make more,” Loki explained. “Please, touch the tip of the rod sticking out of the jar.”
Minion did as commanded.
A blue spark arced from the rod even before he could touch it, and he leapt back clutching his hand, crying out.
“You see, the powder comes from gold or some other equally precious metal. In order to turn gold into the powder, you need this.” Loki stroked the outside of the jar, which did nothing. “Once I’ve converted that lump of gold into the magic powder, and with the proper celestial bodies in alignment in a few months time, I can float an entire galleon through that portal into the fairy realm at the lake!”
Minion jumped up and down, infected with Loki’s energy. “Let’s do it master! I want to see the gold change!”
“Yes, yes, let’s,” Loki said, and caught himself rubbing his hands together like Minion. He wiped his hands on his trousers, regained his composure, and reached for the candle-snuffer end of the chain.
He positioned the snuffer over the tip of the metal rod protruding from the jar, dropped it, and jumped back when a spark sizzled at the contact. His eyes were big with anticipation, his fists raised in the air ready to be jubilant.
Aside from the gold color fading some, however, not much else happened.
And though his fists remained in the air, Loki’s expression faded as well.
Minion maintained an idiot’s grin, but it was strained as he looked nervously between his master and the lump of gold.
“Touch the gold,” Loki said.
“But master...” Minion whined, clutching his still-stinging hand.
“Touch it.”
Closing his eyes, Minion reached out and grasped the lump of gold and sighed when he felt nothing but lukewarm metal.
“Dammit!” Loki pounded his fist on the table, causing the jar to bounce and Minion to jump back. For an encore, Loki picked up the whole jar and threw it against the nearest wall, where it exploded into a shower of shards, acrid liquid, and jangling copper parts.
He turned the table over in a cacophony of tumbling metal utensils and moved to the window like a whirlwind of rage. At the window, Loki threw the shudders open and once again shouted, “Dammit!” and beat his fists on the windowsill.
Then just as suddenly as his outburst started, it stopped. He plopped down in the chair before the window, a sullen look on his face. Minion crouched in the corner.
“That size a jar should have sufficed,” Loki mused out loud after an interminable amount of time had passed. “Perhaps I would have had to refill it once...maybe twice...with fresh electrolyte, but it should have worked.”
He looked up, a spark of hope in his eyes. “Maybe the materials are too crude...or maybe, I need a bigger vessel!” But just soon as he reasoned this to himself, the spark in his eyes went out. “No, no, the gold barely turned color! The best material and a jar ten times that size probably wouldn’t do either.”
At length, he leaned over and put his head in his hands.
“Has the world changed that much?” It was more of a statement than a question. Minion didn’t dare make a noise. “This place, Avalon, is the best the world has to offer? So what if the weather is near perfect? So what if the sky is bluer than blue, the grass greener than green, and the air perfumed of apple blossom? What good is all that to me? I hunger for...”
Loki froze. Something in his view caught his attention.
“Perfect weather,” he said detachedly. “Rarely a cloud in the sky...but rainbows.”
His voice trailed off as he stood and leaned out the window and took a good long look at the countryside beyond the keep walls. At rolling green hills, at lush forests and at the dazzling blue sky.
He sat back down in his chair, a dumbfounded look on his face.
“Could it be?” he whispered.
Chapter Eight
The end of the world began with sand hissing against a tent, a sound like the grains disappearing down the throat of an hourglass. Lokutis sat up clenching his chest, legs hanging over the edge of the mattress, and waited for a long moment until a deep breath rattled out of his lungs, and then he collected himself. He wrapped a crimson robe about his pale shoulders and ducked outside to wait for dawn.
As the tent flap fell shut, the air filled with the sound of fluttering wings. Something large had been resting above the tent door, and was taking flight directly into the sunrise. A solitary sand-colored feather drifted down to him, and he shielded his eyes to get a better look at his visitor. It looked like a large vulture, but the crimson light tangled around its silhouette. Something about the creature struck him as odd, but it was gone, and other problems weighted his thoughts.
Lokutis plodded through the sand, picking his way through obstacles that were at first just rocks, then mason stones, and then broken portions of walls. He looked back one more time, just to check. The tent was of the nomadic design, but enlarged to make a small mountain of shimmering silk, crimson like his robe with gold trim. His simple black banner oscillated serpent-like from the pinnacle. The sky above it was empty.
He stopped at a waist-high circle of mortared stones that contained a spring―the pool spilled continuously over the stone lip and soaked into the sand. He thrust his hands into the cool water and splashed his face. He let the water run down his throat and robe. Then, leaning heavily on one elbow, he cupped more water in his palm and wiped it across the back of his neck. He let the liquid wash away the night's sweat, but it could not wash away the memory of the nightmare.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” said a voice behind Lokutis.
He turned and saw his advisor, awake, silhouetted in the first razor thin line of sunlight. His violet robe and black sash fluttered around his lanky form. His skin was as dark and as smooth as obsidian. His strange almond shaped eyes did not rest on his master, but gazed past his shoulder to the tower.
“Indeed, Akahamet,” Lokutis replied.
“Do you intend on finishing it?” Akahamet asked, arching a painted eyebrow. The rising sun glinted off his shaven head. “Is that why you asked that the meeting take place in its shadow?”
Above the valley walls the sun washed the ruins, turning them surreal and red, more alive than at midday when everything became the same dead color. A field of toppling columns sent fingers of shadow across the valley floor, toward the megalithic ruins, ruins so huge that from a distance they easily would have been mistaken in the darkness for another of the valley’s craggy peaks.
A tower. A monster.
Well, it should have been. A broad road started at the base, then circumscribed the bottommost tier and appeared on the outside of the next highest, now more narrow. This concourse continued ever so higher right up to the point where construction had ended. Even there, if the dimensions stayed relative, the road must have been broad enough to allow four oxcarts to travel abreast of each other, miles above the valley floor.
In the distance a large pair of wings coasted around the tower, hunting. It was probably the th
ing that had crept up to his tent―probably a vulture that had been enticed by the smells of his camp. It circled the road and disappeared around one side of the tower, the side that was partially collapsed. There, the architecture was exposed, and probably sheltered many rodents in the great halls meant for men.
Each of the tower’s tiers was a man-made shell circling the outside of a core of natural rock—the tower was constructed around a landform. Monstrous arches fixed the shell walls to the mountain core, and six of these radiated outward at each tier. Between the arches stretched out secondary arms, from each corner, that reached out to one another. They united in the center like four hands clasping together, forming a vaulted ceiling for one section of a tier, which in turn would be the floor for another. The network of keystones that kept the megalithic bridgework suspended in air was mind-boggling.
The mountain core was un-hewn at its lower portions, but its peak had been shaped into a perfect cylinder—chiseled down to a smooth circular platform. Not satisfied with the height at this point, the builders had used this platform as a new base for a lattice of arches that supported yet another tier.
It was at this point that construction had come to an abrupt halt. Arching spans hung incomplete. The shell wall was only partially bricked, exposing the frame. The winding road emptied into nothingness. Judging from the width of the last level, there was plenty of room to continue skyward with the tier within tier method of construction before it had to come to an inevitable stop. With one level growing out of another, reaching ever higher, it gave the impression of something organic―like a hollow reed of marsh grass. Or perhaps, with its side crumbled away, revealing a thousand-score arches and chambers, a honeycomb, or the broken shell of a nautilus. Were the builders trying to copy nature? Improve upon its perfection? Or were some designs simply inevitable?
In any case, the tower was a wonder. To see a manmade structure rising from the valley floor, subduing an entire mountain, first inspired shock, followed briefly by disbelief, and then paralyzing awe. It was a city in the sky.
Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) Page 24
